OPINION:
President Biden wasn’t telling the truth when he said he would never pardon his son. Mr. Biden on Sunday issued a “get out of jail free” card covering all the dirty deeds Hunter has committed since 2014.
While distasteful and excessive, this act of fatherly clemency has an upside. It prevents the incoming executive from dwelling on the past.
Mr. Biden’s family is no longer relevant. There are more pressing matters — such as preventing World War III, stopping the invasion of illegal immigrants and restoring sanity to supermarket prices.
If the price of putting America back on a path of economic growth, prosperity and peace is letting a few small-time grifters escape the big house, so be it. The pardon also provides cover to President-elect Donald Trump to immunize himself, his staff and his supporters from the Jan. 6 prosecutions brought by a Department of Justice that Mr. Biden now admits operates with political motives.
In a statement, Mr. Biden said he believes his son was targeted, saying that “people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.”
The GOP had nothing to do with filing those charges. It was Merrick Garland, Mr. Biden’s attorney general, who set the process in motion after reviewing the wanton conduct.
Hunter Biden bought a Colt .38 Special revolver while high on drugs. Less than two weeks later, his former paramour Hallie Biden found the gun in his unlocked truck with a crack pipe and cocaine residue. She threw the weapon into a strip mall trash dumpster, where it was later recovered by an old man seeking “treasure.”
Likewise, Hunter’s failure to pay his IRS bill wasn’t a function of his being a down-and-out addict. He was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ladies of the evening and then attempting to claim this as a tax deduction.
But it’s absolutely true that the president’s son received special treatment. The Department of Justice spent years concealing these misdeeds. Only after the infamous laptop’s irrefutable evidence slipped out and IRS whistleblower testimony exposed the administration’s cover-up did Mr. Garland’s DOJ decide to file two meager cases against Hunter.
A sweetheart plea deal was supposed to immunize Hunter for past offenses without jail time. Unfortunately for him, a federal judge actually read the terms and refused to allow it to stand.
The pistol purchase and tax evasion are distractions from what happened when Hunter took a board position with Ukrainian energy firm Burisma in 2014. He leveraged his access to his father, who was then vice president, to make millions for himself and “the Big Guy.”
Thus, it’s no accident that the pardon covers crimes Hunter “has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014.” The pay-to-play and money laundering have always been the felonies worth pursuing.
While his family will retain its ill-gotten gains, Mr. Biden loses the ability to speak out on issues of the day with any moral authority.
From the beginning of his career, Mr. Biden demonstrated disdain for the truth. He got caught plagiarizing British politicians in his law school papers. He claimed his 2020 campaign was sparked by Mr. Trump’s support of White nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia — an easily disproved lie.
It’s fitting that his final consequential act, the pardon, is also built on falsehood. That is now Mr. Biden’s tarnished legacy.
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