President Biden is paving the way for his son Hunter’s pardon as his Department of Justice contemplates a potential indictment resulting from a federal investigation that has lasted for several years, according to New York Post columnist and “Laptop from Hell” author Miranda Devine.
“That mythology of Joe Biden that’s been around for more than four decades, which is that he’s a lovely family man… moderate Democrat, lunch pail Joe, working class Joe, the poorest man in Congress, and a wonderful family man full of empathy because of the tragedies in his own life. That’s what he’s playing on,” Devine said during “Fox & Friends Weekend” Sunday.
“I think the end game is that he’s setting up… framing this sympathy card so that when it comes time, perhaps in his lame duck period, that he will pardon Hunter and Americans will forgive him because they will say, well, Hunter was a drug addict and Joe just loves his family, and he’s been through enough tragedy in his life,” she continued. “Leave him alone.”
Devine’s warning follows President Biden’s rare interview, in which he rejected the possibility that his son’s charges would have any effect on his term in office, claiming that the issue is a “political witch hunt” orchestrated by his opponents.
“My son has done nothing wrong,” Biden said during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on Friday.
“I trust him. I have faith in him, and it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him,” he added.
The Post columnist issued a prognostication for how the fallout of criminal charges brought against his son would play out.
“It’s obviously rehearsed, and the plan for Joe Biden is to just remove himself entirely from the influence peddling operation that he was involved in with his son Hunter and his brother Jim, pretend that it has nothing to do with him, and that Hunter is just being persecuted in a political witch hunt,” Devine said.
“That’s probably the only way he can go, considering he’s lied about his involvement since before the 2020 election,” she continued. “And it will work for him with those Americans, and there are still many of them who believe that Joe Biden, that his only scene is that he loves his son too much.”
She also gave her perspective on how the Hunter Biden laptop ties in directly to Joe Biden, which would further complicates matters because the president might have to take the unprecedented action to pardon both himself and his son.
“I think from his point of view, he feels he’s done nothing wrong,” Devine said. “Remember, in his laptop, he says he gave half to give half its money to his father, that he was basically acting as the bag man for the operation, so he just wants to save himself.”
The Department of Justice has a host of rules about presidential pardons, which may apply to the Bidens’ case. According to the American Bar Association, it is an open matter whether a president can pardon himself.
“One unsettled legal question is whether a president can pardon himself,” the ABA states. “The Constitution says a president cannot pardon ‘in cases of impeachment.’ Expert legal opinions on this question vary, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not weighed in on this issue.”
The decision on potential charges against Hunter is expected soon, according to sources close to the matter who spoke to the Washington Post. U.S. Attorney David Weiss is said to be nearing a verdict in the case, which focuses on potential tax and gun-related offenses. The report came after Hunter’s attorneys met with DOJ officials in late April, during which tensions supposedly escalated between his lawyers and those of his father, according to an Axios report.
The same report claimed on Friday that these tensions led Hunter Biden to hire a new lawyer to adopt a more combative approach without first consulting his father’s legal advisers. A former top Department of Justice spokesperson pointed out that Hunter Biden’s actions, which could push past the president’s advisers’ guardrails, could be “a legitimate headache for the White House.”
Hunter Biden is also the subject of a congressional inquiry into his foreign business transactions and a legal battle in Arkansas over child support for his four-year-old daughter.