The evidence is in the pattern of behavior

Joe Biden repeatedly, in many forums and over many months, claimed that he would also respect the jury system and rule of law and never grant his son Hunter Biden a pardon for the crimes for which he was convicted.  

Now that he has reversed himself after the election and has granted a pardon for those crimes, the legacy mainstream media is working double time to exonerate Biden from the charge of having lied to the American people.  The preferred angle is that Biden simply changed his mind and therefore he was not lying.  A pretty tenuous argument under the best of circumstances, and these aren't the best of circumstances.  There are those who have argued all along that he was always going to pardon Hunter and the facts support them.

Further, it was beneficial to claim he would never grant a pardon when he was campaigning for himself or for Harris.  It is personally beneficial to Biden to make the pardon now.  

Neo points out two additional aspects of the pardon which are getting respectively little and no traction in the legacy mainstream media.  From Not your father's pardon.  

The first point which is being discussed, mostly on the right, is that this is an unusually comprehensive and curiously expansive pardon.  Hunter Biden is pardoned for all federal crimes he may have committed from 2014.  2014 being the year he took up a board position with a gas company in Ukraine and began doing international deals that involved his father.  

The second point that I have not seen anyone make is the self-refuting nature of Biden's justification for the pardon.

Joe Biden has argued that he needs to grant the pardon to protect Hunter from an already politicized Department of Justice.  That Hunter has been unfairly singled out for prosecution by Biden's own DOJ.  A gossamer argument if there ever were one.  If Biden were arguing that he feared a future politicized DOJ, that might make some sense.  But he is arguing that his DOJ is already politicized AND that it is politicized against Biden.

Many, if not most on the right, would support the argument that the DOJ is already politicized and they have marshaled plenty of facts and evidence to support that charge.  But that the DOJ is politicized against Biden?  The evidentiary basis is pretty slim pickings.  

Neo points out why Biden's argument is self-refuting.

But Joe had to protect his son, his family, and himself from any possible charges connected with the family corruption, influence-peddling, FARA violations, perjury, and what-have-you. That’s why the pardon had to start in 2014, when Hunter began his “work” with Burisma. That’s also why the pardon had to be so broad.

And you may recall that Hunter Biden’s original plea deal that was offered by the Biden-friendly DOJ had included an unusually broad immunity grant:

First son Hunter Biden was set to receive sweeping immunity protection under the terms of a plea deal negotiated with federal prosecutors — only for the Justice Department to backtrack under questioning from a Delaware judge during a Wednesday hearing.

Special Assistant US Attorney Leo Wise and Hunter’s lawyer Christopher Clark both signed a probation-only agreement to allow the 53-year-old first son to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and enter a diversion program for a felony charge of possessing a firearm while addicted to crack cocaine, according to a copy of the document obtained by Politico.

The memo stated that prosecutors would also not seek to charge Hunter Biden for any federal crimes attached to his case, which included millions of dollars in missed tax payments between 2016 and 2019.

The deal only left open the possibility of “prosecution for any future conduct” by the president’s son — ensuring that possible violations of foreign lobbying laws and money laundering would be forever uncharged.

That article is from July of 2023. This is what the original deal from the DOJ was. Far from being out to get Hunter (which is what Joe now asserts: selective prosecution from a hostile DOJ), they were out to make sure Hunter didn’t serve a day in prison and to immunize him from future prosecutions. The only reason it didn’t work was that the judge noticed it and put the kibosh on it.

So, far from being some act of defiance against an anti-Hunter weaponized DOJ, Joe Biden’s pardon is merely achieving what the DOJ originally tried to achieve, only through another route.

The DOJ already attempted to expansively pardon Hunter Biden back in 2023.  The DOJ got caught by an attentive judge and their unusual sweetheart deal was tossed out ignominiously.  

Far from being politicized against Biden, the DOJ has functioned for the past four years as Biden's own protection racket with politicized cases against his political opponents and sweetheart plea deals for his family and friends.  

This last point - the connecting of the Delaware court fiasco with the current pardon.  Biden and the DOJ have always attempted to shield Hunter, and indirectly, Joe, from prosecution.  First in Delaware with a shameful comprehensive plea deal that would have exonerated him from all past crimes, and then with th current pardon which . . .  exonerates Hunter Biden from all past crimes.

To me, this is the most damning evidence of Joe Biden's pardon.  He lied about not pardoning.  He lied about the politicizing of the DOJ against him.  And he has lied about the expansiveness of the pardon.  And the legacy mainstream media is only focused on whether he changed his mind or whether he lied about his promise to not make a pardon.