Outgoing President Joe Biden, an enfeebled lame duck with a tarnished legacy, has pardoned his convicted felon son -- despite repeated and categorical assurances that no such pardon would be issued. The unequivocal promises always struck me as a lie, but it was a lie the president's team stood behind, very publicly, month after month. Indeed, they expanded the lie to include a pledge that the president wouldn't even offer a commutation to Hunter Biden. Of course, it was never true. It was never going to be true. He was always going to pardon his son, especially if Republicans ended up winning back the White House, which they did. The insulting new artifice they've constructed is that Biden just this weekend decided to reverse his supposedly ironclad vow, and that he wrestled with the choice. They've lied so much about all of this, so what's one more lie, right?
BREAKING: Karine Jean-Pierre denies she and Biden were lying when they repeatedly told the American people there would be no pardon for Hunter pic.twitter.com/GQ2QR6aIGQ
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 2, 2024
WH’s @KJP46, under close questioning by reporters in AF1 gaggle, says President Biden decided to pardon son Hunter over the weekend and that he struggled with the decision.
— Steve Holland (@steveholland1) December 2, 2024
And yes, this very much is another lie, per NBC's reporting:
True, and here's the link: https://t.co/vqORsJTxbM pic.twitter.com/UC3pkWEGk6
— Georgia Log Cabin (@GeorgiaLogCabin) December 2, 2024
Good luck with this, Karine:
We don’t believe you, or him, because you’ve both lied about this, repeatedly and brazenly. Your claims and denials hold zero weight. In fact, your denials serve as confirmation at this point. https://t.co/wru6FxwBJP
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) December 2, 2024
Some thoughts -- with points three through five being the most important:
(1) Yes, it was a gigantic lie, told for political reasons, in order to appear morally superior and ethically principled during an election season. They didn't fudge or parse or evade. They asserted. Falsely. Again and again:
A compilation of every time KJP was asked if Biden is going to pardon Hunter and every time she said no.pic.twitter.com/i4hEeVEpjN
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) December 2, 2024
Reporter to Joe Biden: Have you ruled out a pardon for your son?
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) December 2, 2024
Joe Biden: Yes.
Reporter to KJP: Will President Biden pardon his son Hunter?
KJP: It's still a no, it will be a no. It is a no. Will he pardon his son? No.
Joe Biden: *pardons Hunter Biden* pic.twitter.com/tSjkJZ7cJK
(2) Much of the media swallowed the lie whole, celebrating Biden for his righteousness. These people were either embarrassingly credulous, or they were playing along with the charade in order to advance and assist their team's partisan, pre-election interests. Some of the self-righteousness is particularly embarrassing, and further discrediting:
SUPERCUT!
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 2, 2024
Corporate media: Obviously Biden would never pardon Hunter pic.twitter.com/gJRhASCAUs
people who insist Biden will pardon Hunter after specifically ruling it out are telling on themselves
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 13, 2024
they can't imagine someone acting on principle and keeping his word
(3) This goes far beyond a lie-laden broken promise, even though this one is especially egregious and shameless. This scandal dates back to early 2014, nearly 11 years ago, when Joe Biden was Vice President. That is when Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, started paying Hunter Biden a staggering $83,000 per month, despite his manifest lack of expertise or qualifications in their business realm. What he did have expertise in, however, was granting access to his powerful father -- access that he flaunted and showcased in order to make huge sums of money from various foreign sources. Joe Biden was in on this family enrichment scheme. He, "the big guy," was the central cog of the whole lucrative wheel, after all. When Donald Trump tried to pressure the Ukrainian government into investigating this nasty little scheme (an episode I wrote about here), Democrats impeached him over it. Fascinatingly and revealingly, President Biden decided to issue a blanket pardon for his son dating back to...early 2014, long before anyone could spin this as Republicans "targeting" Hunter for political reasons because he's the president's son:
The pardon period covered begins January 1, 2014.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 2, 2024
Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma in April 2014. https://t.co/F5s07OigqU
Neat that Joe Biden knows exactly when his son's criminal activity began. https://t.co/0hqM5rWk2A
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) December 2, 2024
(4) Highly relatedly, much of the evidence of Hunter Biden's malfeasances and criminality trace back to his infamous laptop. You know, the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden that the 2020 Biden presidential campaign recruited a small army of former US intelligence officials to wrongly identify as 'Russian disinformation,' a claim the elder Biden repeated in front of tens of millions of voters on a debate stage. The media ran with Biden's laundered denial as if it were gospel, and major social media companies censored and throttled the accurate reporting from the New York Post and others about it -- all during the final stretch of that election season. The Post even had its Twitter account suspended by the platform's previous ownership team, for the infraction of publishing factually-correct journalism. The authenticity of that laptop has long since been confirmed, and we know that the FBI was aware of its authenticity very early in this whole mess. Its contents helped lead to criminal charges and convictions against the president's son, which the president has now wiped away. The laptop was and is real. The Russians had nothing to do with it.
This information was actively suppressed just before a consequential election, with the complicity of the Democrats, the "news" media, big tech, and major US intelligence players. That nasty episode came on the heels of Democrats' dirty trick from the previous election cycle: The Russia collusion hoax and the Steele Dossier, uncorroborated and debunked garbage that was literally bought and paid for by the Democratic Party. Taken together, this fact pattern is why many Trump supporters and right-leaning Americans do nothing but scoff when the same people who fully embraced the "collusion" fable and the laptop denials now wring their hands about a "politicized" Justice Department in Trump's second presidency. Not all of their concerns will necessarily be unfounded, mind you, but they don't have a leg to stand on, in terms of credibility on these issues. See Karine Jean Pierre's tweet above, for an apt comparison.
(5) The evidence on Hunter Biden's laptop, coupled with other testimony and attestations from accomplices, further vindicates the broader 'Biden Crime Family' narrative. We were told this was all a deranged, fever-swamp fantasy by the Democrats, and nearly all of the "news" media dutifully treated the scandal as an icky, right-wing obsession. The Biden administration, meanwhile, sought to punish key whistleblowers who were making the Biden family's lives more difficult through accountability efforts, while the Biden Justice Department tried to abuse its power to magic-wand away Hunter's legal exposure with an outrageous sweetheart deal that almost went through, until a judge asked some inconvenient questions, blowing up the pact. The very fact that the president's pardon is so sweeping, dating back more than a decade, even covering potential crimes that may have been committed, gives away the game. This wasn't merely about a gun charge, arising from some poor decisions from an allegedly former addict. This wasn't just about some misfiled tax documents, in a separate case. The slate has now been unilaterally cleansed from the start of 2014, when Hunter's corrupt foreign entanglements began in earnest, to the end of 2024, when his father is poised to leave office. The influence peddling, the access purchasing, the dirty millions from foreign sources: It's all covered.
This sordid affair led to the bank accounts of multiple Biden family members, straight up to the Big Guy's door. The president is doing his son a solid here, of course, while astoundingly preening about his commitment to the truth in doing so. But he's also covering for himself. I suspect more Biden Family Enrichment Scheme-related pardons are on the way. The conservative critics, far from being wild-eyed conspiracy theorists, were once again correct. This development -- while being entirely predictable, and indeed predicted -- is as outrageous as it was inevitable. Joe Biden is a clumsy and corrupt liar. His already-tattered legacy has now suffered another self-inflicted blow as he shuffles and stumbles toward the White House exits. And he will soon be replaced in the Oval Office by the man whom the Democratic Party and their array of cronies have violated numerous norms in the name of stopping. How fitting. I'll leave you with this:
A 3 act play starring Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Politico: pic.twitter.com/u1VGlWBdcM
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) December 2, 2024
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