Not a Good Look

As you may have heard, Joe Biden granted a broad pardon to his son Hunter today.

I understand the reason, there is significant evidence that a Trump DoJ would engage in a malicious prosecution, as Hunter's defense team noted.

There are plenty of reasons for him to do this, but the fact that he categorically ruled out any pardon this summer makes it, to quote (not) Tallyrand, "Worse than a crime, it is a mistake."

President Joe Biden on Sunday issued a full and unconditional pardon for his son Hunter, a controversial decision that reverses his long-standing pledge to not use his presidential powers to protect his only surviving son, who was found guilty of gun-related charges in Delaware and pleaded guilty to tax evasion in California.

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“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” he said. “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Biden said he came to the decision over the weekend, which coincided with the family being together in Nantucket, Massachusetts, for Thanksgiving. Hunter Biden’s attorneys this weekend also mounted a vigorous public defense, releasing a 52-page paper on Saturday titled “The political prosecutions of Hunter Biden.”

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According to the text of the pardon, it applies to all offenses that Hunter Biden “has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”

The problem here is not the pardon, it was the promise not to do so.

This is not Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon.