Justifying the decision to pardon his own son, President Joe Biden pointed to Republicans bringing “political pressure” on the criminal justice system, which he claimed had scuttled a plea deal and was why Hunter’s tax-and-gun issues risked landing him in prison for up to 25 years.

“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,” Biden said in a statement. In that, he wasn’t exactly wrong, his son having been charged by a Trump-appointed prosecutor, albeit one kept on the job by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., had conceded that the “average American” never “would have been charged with the gun thing,” referring to Hunter Biden allegedly purchasing a firearm while still suffering from drug addiction (the tax thing, he said, was more legitimate).

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Speaking to reporters after the sweeping pardon was issued, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggested that the president had made the decision to help his son because he also feared the retribution that could come under his successor. Asked if Biden would have issued the pardon had Vice President Kamala Harris won in November, Jean-Pierre said, “I can answer that — it’s a no,” even as she went on to dismiss the question as a........

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