So, President Joe Biden has pardoned his son. As most would expect, the same group of people who re-elected him, with all that we know, are outraged and crying foul.
In a perfect world, Biden would have let the process play out and allow for Hunter to take his lumps. However, in the same perfect world, Hunter Biden would have been allowed to plead out to these charges and face the same jeopardy that others with the same facts would. But, this is not a perfect world and the whole process became very politicized.
Even as Biden was assuring the public that he would not intervene, I did not think in the end, he would risk allowing Hunter go to prison and put his hard fought recovery in jeopardy. One thing is for certain, Biden has been unapologetic regarding his devotion to his family and his love for his only remaining son.
While president, Trump made many, many questionable pardons himself, completely outside of the normal pardon process, excluding the Department of Justice from the process. When entering these pardons, none of the trial judges overseeing the respective case saw fit to offer a rebuke to the president for the exercise of his Article 2 power to pardon. Again, we see yet one more norm annihilated by a Trump appointed judge, who was going to sentence Hunter Biden.
As for the argument that Biden issuing this pardon would somehow embolden Trump to grant pardons and set aside norms are being disingenuous, or extremely naive, thinking that Trump is not going to do whatever in the hell he wants.
I guess the only saving grace is that Trump unintentionally gave Biden a gift called presidential immunity, insulating him from the wrath of the Trump Justice Department and FBI.