ArcaMax

On his way out the door last January, then-President Joe Biden issued broad, preemptive pardons for several relatives and political allies. Those stay-out-of-jail cards set an alarming precedent that could undermine the accountability of government officials by encouraging future presidents to shield underlings from prosecution for criminal conduct.

Although Biden made that reckless decision, he blamed Donald Trump, saying he had to act given the danger that the incoming president would pursue politically motivated prosecutions. That excuse was one of the year's most memorable attempts to dodge responsibility. Here are some more highlights.

Working the Refs. Throughout the year, Trump blamed his legal losses on "Radical Left" judges who supposedly were determined to obstruct his agenda for political reasons, even when the judges who ruled against him were appointed by Trump himself or other Republicans. A more plausible explanation is the president's tendency to ignore statutory and constitutional limits on his authority to deport people, restrict citizenship, impose tariffs, deploy the National Guard, and punish his political opponents.

TL;DR. After the House of Representatives approved the 1,037-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act by a single-vote margin in May, two Republican legislators belatedly objected to provisions they had not previously noticed. Although Reps. Mike Flood (R-Neb.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) implied they had been tricked into supporting policies they opposed, they could have avoided that unpleasant surprise by reading the bill before voting for it.

Fatal Mistake. In May, a federal judge in New Mexico blocked Fourth Amendment claims against three police officers who went to the wrong house in response to a late-night report of "a possible domestic violence situation," then shot and killed Robert Dotson when he came to the door with a gun in his hand. Although the cops were "negligent," they "reasonably believed that Dotson posed a severe risk of imminent harm," U.S. District Judge Matthew Garcia said, rejecting the argument that they "recklessly created the need to apply deadly force by going to the wrong address."

Risk Response. That same day, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a similarly narrow analysis in a case involving a Texas cop who stopped a car for suspected toll violations. After endangering himself by jumping on the car as it began to move again, he addressed the resulting hazard by shooting the driver dead.

Electronic Scapegoat. In June, the Supreme Court revived a lawsuit provoked by a 2017 FBI raid in Atlanta that terrorized three innocent people, including a 7-year-old boy, after agents executing search and arrest warrants went to the wrong house. The SWAT team's leader claimed he had been misdirected by "a personal GPS device" that he later threw out, making his excuse impossible to verify.

Invasion of the Child Snatchers. Also in June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit greenlit a lawsuit against two Midland, Texas, police officers who kidnapped a 14-year-old girl, Jade McMurry, from her home based on the erroneous claim that she had been "abandoned." The cops argued that Jade's mother, who was in Kuwait looking into a potential job but had arranged for a neighbor to regularly check on Jade and her younger brother, was responsible for "separating the family."

Removal Regrets. In July, Trump sympathized with farmers whose hard-working, longtime employees "get thrown out pretty viciously" as a result of his own immigration crackdown. He seemed dismayed by the consequences of delivering on his promise to implement "the largest deportation program in American history."

Missed Malfeasance. In December, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina attributed the biggest law enforcement scandal in New Mexico's history, involving three decades of bribes that made DWI cases disappear, to the greed of "people I worked with" and "believed in." Medina, who says he had no inkling of the pervasive and persistent corruption even though he joined the Albuquerque Police Department in 1995 and has run or helped run it since 2017, glided over the significance of his own cluelessness.

Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason magazine, is the author of Beyond Control: Drug Prohibition, Gun Regulation, and the Search for Sensible Alternatives (Prometheus Books). Follow him on X: @jacobsullum. To find out more about Jacob Sullum and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

----

Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate, Inc.