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The Complicated Politics of the Hunter Biden Pardon

The President once again made life harder for Democrats, but the GOP should shut up

Dan Pfeiffer

Dec 3

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Late on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, just as everyone started focusing on their return to school and work, President Joe Biden issued a “full and unconditional” pardon of his son Hunter. In his statement, Biden argued:

The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. 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.

The pardon represented a full reversal for Biden, who, while running for reelection, repeatedly pledged that he would not issue a pardon for Hunter. As expected, the media is in a feeding frenzy. Republicans are frothing at the mouth, ready to call out Biden for his hypocrisy; and Democrats are, once again, split over whether to defend the Democratic President. When Democrats and the political world should be focusing on Trump’s troubled pick for Defense Secretary and his dangerous selection for FBI Director, everyone is talking about Joe Biden pardoning his son. Others can better discuss the legal and constitutional implications of the President’s decision, but discourse over the politics is abysmal.

Voters Never Held Hunter Against Biden

Biden ended his statement by saying, “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”

The initial evidence is that they will.

The Republicans spent the last six years trying to make Hunter a political albatross for Biden. It’s hard to keep all of Trump’s high crimes straight, but Trump’s first impeachment came from trying to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into launching an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings in the region. The House GOP launched an impeachment inquiry based on specious evidence related to Hunter. Heck, many Republicans, including JD Vance, believe that suppression of information on Hunter’s laptop by social media platforms was the reason Trump lost in 2020...