MIRANDA DEVINE: We always knew Biden would pardon Hunter. It's fitting president would break another promise
We always knew Joe Biden would pardon his troubled son Hunter, no matter how many times he promised he wouldn’t.
So, it is fitting that one of the final acts of this mendacious president before leaving office was to break yet another promise to the American people.
Thus, on Sunday night, the president issued a statement from the White House declaring that he had just signed a "Full and Unconditional Pardon" for Robert Hunter Biden, 54.
BIDEN PARDONS SON HUNTER BIDEN AHEAD OF EXIT FROM WHITE HOUSE
The pardon Joe vowed he would never give comes just days before Hunter was due to be sentenced over a felony gun conviction in Delaware in June and California felony tax fraud charges in September to which he pleaded guilty on the first day of trial.
Joe claims that Hunter was "selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently… singled out only because he is my son."
In an amusing twist, the president explained away all his lies to the American people by lying about his lying: "For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth."
Blatant about-face
Joe told reporters in June after Hunter was convicted of felony gun charges in Delaware that he definitely would not pardon his son.
"I said I abide by the jury decision," he said at the G7 summit in Italy. "I will do that. And I will not pardon him."
When a reporter asked, "Do you plan on commuting your son’s sentence?," Joe, 82, said, "No."
With a truthful president, that would be the end of it, but with the fabulist, plagiarist Pinocchio currently in that job, it meant little.
The same for the repeated assurances of the perennial know-nothing Karine Jean-Pierre from the White House podium that no pardon would be forthcoming.
No wonder Hunter looked so smug over the weekend when he was photographed out and about in Nantucket with his dad and the rest of the Biden clan.
For a guy facing two prison sentences, he was chewing gum and acting like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Hours after Joe and Hunter dined at a Nantucket restaurant named, appropriately enough, the Brotherhood of Thieves, the Washington Post published excerpts Saturday from a document written by the first son’s lawyers that made the emotional case for his pardon.
Since his father was the only person on the planet with the power to pardon Hunter, at least until his presidency ends on Jan. 20, the 52-page paper would seem to have been written for an audience of one — the Oval Office guy vacationing with his family on Nantucket.
But why would Hunter and his lawyers feel the need to leak the heartstrings-tugging document when he was right there with his dad every day, hanging out in the borrowed mansion of private equity billionaire David Rubenstein, poking around in bookstores buying anti-Israeli books and watching the town Christmas tree lighting?
Clearly, the document was a carefully crafted excuse created to help Joe fool the American people into believing that Hunter was a victim of political persecution, who suffered due to his father’s power and influence.
If you read the excerpts of his lawyers’ mournful missive, titled "The political prosecutions of Hunter Biden," you would see echoes in Joe’s Sunday night statement. You would see that they hold grave fears for Hunter’s future now that the dreaded Donald Trump is taking power.
"With the election now decided, the threat against Hunter is real," the lawyers wrote.
"There is no disputing that Trump has said his enemies list includes Hunter … The prospect that Trump will turn his vengeance on the Special Counsel prosecutors if they fail to take a harder line against Hunter no doubt exerts considerable pressure on them."
Hunter’s pricey lead lawyer, Abbe Lowell, described the opus in dramatic terms as "the complete and reprehensible history of the political persecution of Hunter Biden … a seven-year saga propelled by an unrelenting political desire to use a son to hurt his father."
It is "a wild and terrifying story … a stark warning of what is to come as some of the same Republicans who targeted Hunter prepare to resume power and have stated their intention to use the government’s vast power to pursue their perceived enemies."
His thesis is laughable.
JONATHAN TURLEY: JOE BIDEN'S PARDON OF SON HUNTER CEMENTS HIS LEGACY AS LIAR IN CHIEF
Hunter knowingly committed the crimes for which he has been pardoned and he did so in the arrogant belief that his father’s power made him untouchable.
How right he was.
And despite Lowell’s excuse that Hunter was "in the throes of serious drug addiction," Hunter was sober at the time he committed the tax fraud, according to his own timeline he presented in court.
Hunter’s father and lawyers have spun a fictional narrative expecting that most people won’t know the whole story.
The truth is that Hunter’s legal team bullied the DOJ into not charging Hunter and did so by invoking Joe’s name.
They would have succeeded if not for IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler, who told Congress the truth about the years-long political obstruction of their investigation to favor Hunter and hide Joe’s involvement in the family influence-peddling schemes.
"We haven’t seen this ‘report’ yet, but Hunter Biden’s legal team has consistently gone to extremes to attack us for doing our duty as career law enforcement agents," Shapley and Ziegler said Saturday.
Whistleblowers fume
"No amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President’s son off the hook for multiple felonies.
"We did our duty, told the truth, and followed the law. Anyone reading his lawyers’ excuses now should remember that Mr. Biden admitted to his tax crimes in federal court, that his attorneys are targeting us for our lawful whistleblower disclosures, and that we are suing one of those attorneys for smearing us with false accusations."
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
The Bidens are correct when they say that the legal system was "corrupted by political leaders in this country," or as Joe puts it, "that raw politics has infected this process" — but not in the way they pretend.
Hunter got an unfair advantage because of his father’s power. He broke laws with impunity and knew that nobody would ever stop him from doing exactly what he wanted. Every time he slipped up, his father and his minions in the FBI, DOJ, IRS, State Department and CIA intervened to get him off the hook.
The corrupted investigation in Delaware was just the tip of the iceberg. Hunter didn’t even have to worry about legal fees and living expenses to support his lavish lifestyle. Daddy’s donors always came through.
The person who corrupted the legal system in this country is Joe Biden. He weaponized it against his political nemesis Donald Trump and Trump’s supporters. Trump is the victim of unjust prosecution, not Hunter.
But the American people understand that, as they proved on Election Day when they elected Trump in a landslide, despite the lawfare.
That’s why the news of Hunter’s pardon is the least surprising news of the decade. Nobody believes the word of a Biden.