Osler pointed to another, unprecedented feature: Biden is pardoning his child. 
 
“It is a closer and more intimate kind of connection,” he said.
 
Osler acknowledged that family members have been pardoned before. Trump pardoned his father-in-law, Charles Kushner, and Bill Clinton did the same for his half-brother, Roger. 
 
“But neither was a son or daughter, that’s really different,” Osler concluded.

Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School, has a different view.
 
“The pardon itself is not that unique,” she said. “There have been presidents who have pardoned relatives or people with whom they had business or personal relationships.” 
 
Roiphe’s expertise includes presidential power and the independence of the justice system in American democracy. She sees Biden’s accompanying statement as more striking than the pardon itself because Biden is questioning the political bias of his own Justice Department.
 
“You could endlessly debate the question of, ‘Has this prosecution been politicized?’” Roiphe said, “and I don’t think you could reach an answer. … But I think the damage that Trump started by using all of this really charged rhetoric about the Department of Justice without proof is worsened by this situation.”
 
What does this mean for the DOJ and Biden’s legacy?
 
Again, some nuance, but the experts here generally agree in this area: The way Biden handled this pardon is poised to harm both his legacy and the Justice Department’s credibility. 
 
“Biden ran on this promise to restore faith in the Department of Justice and the system,” Roiphe told us. “This is not in keeping with that promise.”
 
“There isn’t direct proof of politicization, and without direct proof those in power should not be hurling that accusation,” she added. 
 
Wehle supports the pardon in general, but also scratches her head at Biden’s statement with it. 
 
“His accompanying signing statement where he went after his own Justice Department is a little strange,” Wehle said. “That lends credence to Donald Trump’s sort of talking points for years that special counsels are political.”
 
To Osler, there is something more at play as well.  
 
“We're seeing a new and novel way, [to pardon] preemptively,” he said. “Basically a friends and family program. Whether it is outside of the president's power under the Constitution — I don't think it is — it's definitely outside the intended purpose.” 
 
He points out that Biden has granted fewer clemencies than Trump. (The Justice Department keeps clear clemency statistics, which you can access here.) And after pardoning his son, Biden now faces questions about this decision, especially from the thousands whom he has rejected or not considered for clemency.
 
“I know the stories of some of the people in the queue,” Osler said. “They did their time 20 years ago. But the fact that Hunter gets clemency and not many of them — that’s wrong, that’s a duty of the president.” 
 
Biden still has weeks left in his administration and could issue dozens more pardons.
 
But even if he does, Osler believes the pardon of Hunter will have lasting effects.
 
“No doubt in my mind that this will be a problem for his legacy,” he said of Biden.
 
Roiphe went further.
 
“To the extent to which Biden had a legacy in this area, it’s completely undermined by the statement and the pardon. I mean the legacy of restoring faith in the institutions of democracy.”

TRANS HEALTH CARE AT STAKE IN SUPREME COURT CASE

By Joshua Barajas, @Josh_Barrage
Senior Editor, Digital
 
Laura Barrón-López, @lbarronlopez
White House Correspondent
 
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case about Tennessee’s law on restricting gender-affirming medical care for transgender people under 18.
 
The law at the heart of the case: Tennessee’s SB1 prohibits providers from offering gender-affirming care to minors. The umbrella term involves a spectrum of services that seek to affirm someone’s gender identity. Tennessee’s ban targets medical care like puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery. (Surgeries are not at issue in this case.)
 
The key legal question: As Supreme Court analyst Marcia Coyle laid out, the justices will decide whether the law discriminates on the basis of sex, in violation of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.
 
The United States v. Skrmetti case is the first time the high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will hear a challenge to these restrictions on medical care for trans youth. The justices’ decision, expected in June, could have implications for access to transition-related medical care across the country.
 
About half the country — 26 states to date — have restricted or banned gender-affirming care for trans youth.
 
What lies ahead
 
Oral arguments are happening more than a month before a new president arrives in the Oval Office. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to roll back trans rights, deepening the fear among communities of trans people about the incoming administration.
 
Among the biggest concerns for kai alviar horton, the executive director of Trans Lifeline, is trans people in rural America, especially in the South, where there’s often not enough visibility and representation.
 
One thing this incoming administration does well, they said, is spread hopelessness and “breed this idea of fear and this idea of disgust towards trans people.”
 
“My biggest fear is that we're going to lose a lot of our community because they don't have what they deserve to be alive,” he added.

Minnesota Rep. Leigh Finke traveled to Washington, D.C., for Wednesday’s arguments. She became the first trans person elected to the Minnesota Legislature in 2022.
 
Finke said Democrats’ big tent, which includes well-meaning supporters of trans people, do not understand the overall opposition to transness and trans identity.
 
A conversation about the issue of sports and sports participation “is not what the Republicans want to talk about,” she said.
 
Finke said there are also several members of Congress who are “questioning the efficacy of certain arguments in defense of trans people in a way that adopts the language of Republicans.” For instance, Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts has doubled down on controversial comments that the party’s election loss stemmed from supporting trans girls’ inclusion in women’s sports.
 
By doing so, “he's trying to have a good faith argument with people who have made it very clear that they are looking to just get trans people out of the public space,” she said.
 
Going forward, Democrats do not need to adopt the Republican framing of what it means to be trans, Finke added.
 
“Trans people are who we say we are, and the defense of our rights is going to require us to accept inclusion of trans people.”