Merry Christmas, Hunter

Pardoning hapless crackheads, or the period-appropriate equivalent, has been seen as a proper use of the pardon power for centuries. “Ah, Limpin’ Tom, couldn’t steal a cow for the life of him, but he sure gave it a good try after half a barrel of ale. Ordinarily we’d hang him, but, Merry Christmas.” And everyone goes about their way a little lighter – if mercy wasn’t fickle, it wouldn’t be appreciated.

In this case of course, it wasn’t some random crackhead, but the bagman for the sitting President of the United States (actually sitting rather a lot, and lying down – has anyone poked him with a stick recently?). A father-son gift, in the telling, granted over Thanksgiving dinner – now that’s wholesome chungus.

Do we even really need to explain this? The Freudian twists and turns of the Biden family could fill one of those overwrought Oprah’s book club entries about micks getting sad, but it boils down to “here ya go, sport”. Biden is done, it’s over. It’s unlikely he even lives long enough to have his memoirs ghostwritten. He has no more favors left to cash in. He needs nothing between now and January 20th, and hasn’t asked for anything much prior to that. He’s warming the seat, or in this case living out the ecstatic boomer fantasy of basking in the glow of grateful Africans, while whoever he’s forgotten he appointed runs the show. A pardon for his son is about as unexpected as a Christmas card from grandma.

What is somewhat odd is that Joe felt the need to explain this. The relatable wholesome chungus “tbh, I would help my son bury a hooker” explanation was not what was given, but rather the “politicization” of the prosecution. He’s not wrong here.

Anyone with a scintilla of experience with federal prosecutors knows they ruthlessly prioritize, in a way that is inherently political. What do we care about this month? Are we making an example of the drug guys, or the finance guys, doing a favor for an old colleague and indicting his old business partner, or sending a message to the crypto bros? Pad out some layup child porn prosecutions and bank robberies to fill the rest. The feds do not discover, gee, there’s a body floating in the Potomac, we’d better canvas the neighborhood so we can indict the culprit. They decide, with limited attention and resources, what political ends most justify the use of their power to de facto railroad some target. It’s also ridiculously common for a prosecution to be entirely pretextual – just ask Martin Shkreli.

So, you can point to just about any federal prosecution and yell “but this other guy got off with probation, why you pickin on me dawg, I dindevendoonufin”. Biden, presumably, knows this – especially given his background in Congress giving prosecutors “tools” to make it easier to railroad, e.g., drug criminals, to advance the political interest in suppressing black crime (the early 90s were a wild time, kids). Nonetheless, he did the bit. Shocked, shocked, to find political considerations in a government department.

There is a meme that Biden, lacking any consideration for the future of the Democratic Party that backstabbed him after his disastrous debate, is in some sense trolling them. Donning MAGA hats and accelerating gaffes during the Harris campaign, and now reminding the country that yes, the Cossacks work for the czar and the prosecutions of Trump, the J6 defendants, Ricky Vaughn, et al are also inherently “political.” Biden is a spiteful bastard, but if he wanted to Cause Problems for the DNC, he has easier and more direct mechanisms than a rhetorical allusion. In the limit, he could issue clemency to the more egregious J6 cases, or Trump himself. We’ll see what he gets up to between now and Inauguration Day, but I doubt he goes Full Santa on Literally Hitler.

It’s overwhelmingly more likely that he in some sense believes his own bullshit. Dementia patients are not known for their ability to take the outside view and reason from objective moral and ethical considerations, and Biden has been telling bizarre self-justifying anecdotes and explanations for literally decades. You can only pull the “10% for the big guy” bit while simultaneously kicking back to God knows what recursive CIA ops, molesting your relatives, and harrumphing about Our Democracy before your amyloid-ridden brain gives up trying to reconcile these and superimposes a thick layer of “I never did anything wrong. I love my son. You’re out to get me!” Selective recall takes care of the rest.

In this explanation, Biden literally does not care about covering up his own involvement in the affairs Hunter was merely facilitating – a federal corruption prosecution will take substantially longer than he has in the hourglass. There’s no grand strategy, just “what’s the furthest back ‘mistake’ Hunter might have made.” You can still put Hunter under oath, and now he doesn’t have the specter of a federal prosecution looming over his head to justify invoking the Fifth, but realistically, Hunter is not going to flip on the Big Guy regardless of a pardon or lack of one, or even the prospect of renewed contempt or perjury proceedings.

So, you’re left with pure rhetoric, and a simple morality tale about relative corruption of relatives. Trump has and will point to it every time Muh Sacred Norms are brought up, as well he should. It’s been obvious for decades now to everyone with eyes that American politics is a game played between nth-generation apparatchiks jockeying for position to get the really big payoffs, with little regard for the collateral damage. The J6ers and the other victims of the failed Democratic Party coup were caught precisely in that crossfire. They can at least take some comfort in knowing that they will finally be treated as allies to protect rather than embarrassments to be discarded.