[UPDATE 12/4/2024 10:55 am: Esquire revised the post [UPDATE: see here for the revised version]; I hope to blog a bit more about that later today, but for now I just wanted to flag that.] [UPDATE 12/4/2024 5:32 pm: Esquire has now deleted the post altogether, so I don't anticipate blogging about the revised version.]
Esquire posted an item Dec. 3 titled "A President Shouldn't Pardon His Son? Hello, Anybody Remember Neil Bush?" and subtitled "Nobody defines Poppy Bush's presidency by the fact that he pardoned his progeny. The moral: Shut the fck up about Hunter Biden, please." It relates some of Neil Bush's exploits, and states:
[T]his lucky American businessman['s] … father exercised his unlimited constitutional power of clemency to pardon the Lucky American Businessman for all that S&L business way back when. The president's name was George H.W. Bush. The Lucky American Businessman was his son, Neil ….
However, as others have noted (and see also some of the comments to the article), the Justice Department pardon and clemency site doesn't appear to have any record of any pardon to Neil Bush: I've checked the name search function, the Bush Sr. pardon list, and the Bush Sr. commutations list. A 2003 Washington Post article that describes Neil Bush as "the latest manifestation of a long tradition in American life—the president's embarrassing relative" doesn't mention any pardon or clemency, or even any conviction. It says,
In the late '80s and early '90s, Bush embarrassed his father, George H.W. Bush, with his shady dealings as a board member of the infamous Silverado Savings and Loan, whose collapse cost taxpayers $1 billion.
Now Bush has embarrassed his brother George W. Bush with a made-for-the-tabloids divorce that featured paternity rumors, a defamation suit and, believe it or not, allegations of voodoo.
But nothing about a criminal conviction (though he had to pay $50,000 to settle a civil lawsuit filed by federal regulators) or a pardon or commutation. I searched for news stories that mentioned Neil Bush and a pardon or commutation, and found several stories (e.g., this one) that mentioned both Neil Bush being an embarrassment and Roger Clinton being pardoned. If there had been a Neil Bush pardon as well, one would expect them to have noted it, but they didn't.
I did find an assertion about a Neil Bush pardon on Dec. 2 on an Indian site Times Now News, but that has no support for the assertion, either. I also found a 2006 Lansing State Journal article that discussed Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a hunting buddy, and added, "What if Harry Whittington dies? Ten to one, President Bush has a 'pardon' waiting in the wings (a la Neil Bush of 1980s savings-and-loan fame), which says, if you're my man, accountability is not an option." But there too there were no details of any such pardon.
Is there some evidence of Neil Bush being pardoned that I'm missing?
The post <i>Esquire</i> Allegation that President Bush Sr. Pardoned His Son Neil Bush appeared first on Reason.com.
