ANDREW NEIL: The REAL and sickeningly self-serving reason Biden pardoned Hunter. And why it now greenlights Trump to unleash a judicial jihad in revenge

Despite repeated denials that he would ever do it — the most recent just last week — the Big Guy (Hunter Biden’s handle for his father) ultimately came to terms with his scrappy son, with grace for the ages.

Far from putting an end to a sordid affair, it is merely a prelude – even a pretext – for Donald Trump to take revenge on his enemies.

He will now be able to use exactly the same reason that President Biden has given for his extraordinary clemency to his son: that the American justice system is hopelessly politicized.

Something that Trump has always claimed – and that Biden, for his own selfish reasons, is now confirming.

The presidential pardon not only ends the gun and tax crimes, for which Hunter was likely to serve lengthy prison sentences, it also covers “all crimes against the United States that he committed.” [Hunter] has committed or may have committed or participated in it’ from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024.

So whatever federal crimes Hunter committed over the past decade, including crimes we know nothing about, the president’s son can never be held accountable in a court of law. It’s a remarkably elaborate ‘get out of jail’ card.

Indeed, it is difficult to think of a previous presidential pardon that is so similar. All but one: President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon after he was forced to resign over the Watergate scandal and cover-up in August 1974. Biden’s pardon even adopts its wording.

The Ford pardon not only covered all crimes related to Watergate, but extended to “all crimes against the United States” that Nixon “committed or may have committed” between January 20, 1969 and August 9, 1974 – including other words. everything Nixon might have done during his presidency.

Just as there was no mystery about the dates in the Nixon pardon, there is no mystery in the Biden pardon.

Why the start date of January 1, 2014? Simple. Hunter joined the board of directors of Burisma, an unreliable Ukrainian energy company, in April 2014. He was paid millions for his role in the company, despite having no background or expertise in the oil or gas sector.

But he swapped the name for his father – the “Big Guy,” who was then President Obama’s vice president – ​​in an infamous influence-peddling scheme. Hunter’s dark Burisma years have spawned an avalanche of accusations, some false and most still unproven.

The pardon has been carefully crafted to protect him from any new evidence of criminal conduct that might arise. In doing so, it also protects his father from being involved in Hunter’s misdeeds. I doubt there has been a greater abuse of the presidential pardon since it was created by the Founding Fathers nearly 250 years ago.

It certainly marks the end of Saint Joe, the supposedly selfless leader who made way for Kamala Harris for the good of party and nation. Instead, he will spend his final days in the Oval Office as Sleazy Joe, willing to pervert the pardon process to protect not only his son but himself.

Not quite the “Biden Crime Family” of Republican mythology. But a step in that direction. It makes a mockery of all those Democratic cheerleaders who have tried to portray Joe as a cross between George Washington and FDR.

Biden’s pardon is all the more inexcusable because of the president’s repeated statements (amplified by his aides) that he would not pardon his son. Even after Hunter was convicted at trial this summer, the president was unequivocal: “I will accept the outcome of this case and continue to respect the legal process.”

Ultimately, he did not accept the outcome and did not respect the process.

It now appears that the president, along with some of his closest aides, began planning a pardon just as Hunter was convicted in June (according to sources close to the discussions). The hapless White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, was ordered to keep repeating the “no pardons” phrase. But behind closed doors it was actively considered.

Thus, the Biden White House became synonymous with lies and deceit.

No wonder even Democrats are dismayed.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis attacked Biden for “putting family above country” and “setting a bad precedent that could be abused by subsequent presidents.” He clearly had Trump in mind.

Greg Stanton, a Democratic congressman from Arizona, said: “I respect President Biden, but I think he got this wrong. This was not a politically motivated prosecution. Hunter committed crimes and was convicted by a jury of his peers.

Stanton was referring to the reason the president gave for his pardon, a reason that will likely do the greatest damage of all to the American judicial process.

“No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases could come to any conclusion,” the president claims, “other than that Hunter was singled out solely because he is my son – and that is wrong.”

‘Here’s the truth. I believe in the justice system. But as I struggled with this, I also believe that raw politics infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”

Set aside the fact that this is self-serving nonsense — as Rep. Stanton says, Hunter was “convicted by a jury of his peers” — and remember that this is what Trump and his supporters have been saying for some time.

When Biden says, “By breaking Hunter, they tried to break me – and there’s no reason to think it will stop here. Enough is enough,” he sounds exactly like Trump when he claims that the justice system has been politicized on multiple fronts to bring down him and his allies. Hunter’s lawyers even prepared the plea for clemency titled “Hunter Biden’s Political Persecutions.”

There was hope that Trump would abandon thoughts of judicial jihad against his enemies when he returned to the White House, just as his regular promise to jail Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign came to nothing when he took power.

Trump will not be able to reverse Hunter’s pardon if he comes to power. Its sweeping nature means that Trump’s Justice Department, no matter who leads it, cannot reopen the criminal investigation into Hunter. But that will only whet Trump’s appetite to go after others.

Trump will now surely weaponize Biden’s reason for pardoning Hunter as a justification for draining the judicial swamp and taking down those who had tried to take him down.

You now understand why Trump wants an outsider like Kash Patel to run the FBI. But all this threatens to become a huge distraction from everything Trump needs to focus on to get America back on track.

It is Biden’s toxic parting gift to the American people, undermining all the good he has done over the past four years in a departure that will forever tarnish his legacy.

As the pardon was finalized this weekend, the president and his son dined at a Nantucket restaurant called “The Brotherhood of Thieves” — a fitting location as the Biden family enters the history books, even discredited, disgraced and discredited. on his own side.