Biden Pardons Biden // Newsletter 12-2-24

Biden pardons son Hunter Biden ahead of exit from Oval Office

The big political news from over the weekend is that President Biden, in a controversial parting move, pardoned his son Hunter Biden of federal offenses, citing unfair prosecution and his son's battle with addiction.

Receptions are mixed on this one. I'm having a hard time caring about it, to be blunt. The last four years of the Biden administration have been the capstone of 60 years of runaway leftist political malfeasance, featuring open fraud and corruption, cross-dressing court jesters, and an unending stream of political prosecutions and racial patronage schemes. The Democratic party has shipped a zillion dollars overseas, imported tens of millions of illegals, all but legalized street crime, conducted show trials against its political enemies, and sent the FBI after PTA moms, church grannies, and former presidents.

The fact that Biden would pardon his son after saying he wasn't going to is simply business as usual. Hunter Biden is (allegedly) the bagman for a long stream of treasonous bribes and kickbacks, and there were (allegedly) some very disturbing things on his laptop. But I don't care that he lied about being a drug user when he was buying a handgun. I also don't care that he skipped out on his income taxes. These aren't necessarily good things to do, but there are worse crimes, and feigning outrage about this is, in my view, akin to writing a long essay about how outrageous it is that dogs bark at cars.

There's also the simple fact that Hunter is Joe's screw-up son, and his dad—being a dad—has an obligation to bail him out whenever he gets out over his skis. Beags has the right take on this:

Now, with all this said, it's also equally likely that the "dear old dad" angle is only part of the story. The actual text of the pardon doesn't just absolve Hunter of his convictions for lying on a firearm purchase form or cheating on his taxes – it absolves him of any and all federal crimes for an eleven-year period between January 2014 and December 2024.

And because there's a fair chance that the elder Biden may also be connected to whatever alleged crimes Hunter may have been involved in, offering a decade-long hall pass for any and all federal offenses would be a shrewd Irish goodbye to a Democratic party that wasn't exactly tactful about showing Old Man Joe the door last election. And while Joe has clearly lost a step (or three) in his old age, we should not be shocked that Grandpa had one last trick up his sleeve before being shipped off to a home by his ungrateful grandkids in the DNC.

Here's the 11-year pardon: