Jon Stewart eviscerates Joe Biden over decision to pardon his son, Hunter

US President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter, has gone down quite terribly even on his own side of politics.

US President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son weeks before leaving office has gone down quite terribly, even on his own side of politics.

Hunter Biden was convicted, by a jury in Delaware earlier this year of three charges related to his purchase of a gun, having lied about his addiction to drugs when buying it. He also pleaded guilty to tax-related charges in September.

Those offences could have led to prison time. Not anymore. His father has issued a blanket pardon, stretching back to 2014, which means Hunter will not be punished for his crimes.

That time frame, conspicuously, dates back to the year Hunter joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

His role there has been a frequent subject of corruption allegations among Republicans; Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing an investigation of the Bidens, by withholding congressionally approved military aid, led to his first impeachment.

Joe and Hunter Biden. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

So, Hunter’s status as the President’s son has saved him.

We should note that, in a rather Trumpian statement announcing the pardon, Mr Biden claimed Hunter was actually the victim of politically motivated prosecutions.

“I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” he said.

“People are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son. That’s wrong.

“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”

A father, maybe. A president making this decision, though, is a harder sell. And we should stress: a jury found Hunter guilty of the gun-related charges, and he pleaded guilty to the tax-related ones.

So the dispute here is not over Hunter’s guilt. Mr Biden’s argument is that, while his son did indeed commit the crimes in question, prosecutors would not have charged him if his surname weren’t Biden. You may, of course, approach that argument with as much or as little scepticism as you wish.

Joe Biden. Picture: Mauro Pimentel/AFP

We should probably give you Mr Trump’s reaction to the pardon.

“Does the pardon given to Hunter include the January 6 hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” the President-elect wondered on Truth Social.

He was referring to the people who have been tried and convicted over their actions on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol Building in an attempt to stop his election defeat to Mr Biden from being certified.

Some of the folks in question are in jail for trespassing on federal property; others for assaulting Capitol Police officers. Mr Trump has frequently described them as hostages and “political prisoners”.

Anyway. The Hunter Biden pardon has not gone down particularly well, as evidenced by a segment yesterday on the satirical news program The Daily Show, a longtime darling of the American left.

Host Jon Stewart began the show by highlighting Mr Trump’s selection of Kash Patel, a former prosecutor with what might generously be called an interesting record, to run the FBI. Various Democrats have described this pick as a threat to America’s “rule of law”.

“Finally, Democrats have a moral perch from which they can judge without shame, hypocrisy or nuance!” Mr Stewart said (note a high degree of sarcasm, which does not come through in the transcript).

At which point the show cut to a clip, from CNN, announcing Mr Biden’s pardon of his son.

“Motherf***er!” Mr Stewart said. He went on to feign a smidgen of sympathy.

“He’s an 82-year-old man! He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life visiting his son in prison! Republicans get away with this s*** all the time! I’m sure the pardon is a narrowly written, precisely drawn farewell note of compassion for a loved one,” he said.

Cue another news clip, this time describing the pardon as covering any offences Hunter “has committed or may have committed” since 2014. And cue this face.

This could fairly be described, I think, as unimpressed.

“Eleven years is a very specific, and not rounded, amount of time,” Mr Stewart noted, before imagining a conversation between father and son.

“‘So, Hunter! I’ll give you a pardon. What, a few years? Five years, ten years?’ ‘It needs to be eleven.’

“I didn’t know pardons could cover crimes you may have committed.

“Now, some would say that’s what any loving father would do for their troubled son or daughter, should they have the power.”

Mr Stewart went on to mock a TV host who, reacting to the pardon, revealed her father had told her: “If you get arrested, don’t call me. I’m not your first phone call. I’m leaving you in there.” Which is certainly a different approach to parenthood.

“Biden did make this line of attack particularly available,” Mr Stewart proceeded to say.

“Seeing as how he spent so long saying he wouldn’t do it.”

Here are a couple of examples the show cited.

“I said I would abide by the jury’s decision. I will do that, and I will not pardon him,” Mr Biden said at one point.

“Have you ruled out a pardon for your son?” he was asked, in another moment, by ABC News host David Muir.

“Yes,” the President replied.

Pretty unambiguous there. I present to you, now, another Jon Stewart reaction face.

Jon Stewart's unimpressed face, version 2.0.

The guy actually does a decent Biden impression as well. Dude nails the old man squint.

Look, it’s a comedy program. But it’s one that often strays, quite scarily, into substantive commentary on the state of politics (which is partly why I feel no shame, here, transcribing a segment from a satirical news show and offering it to you as something worth reading on a news website).

Mr Stewart was pretty forgiving of Mr Biden himself for acting to protect his son. Too forgiving, perhaps! However, as he noted, that conduct excuses none of the, ahem, excuses from other Democrats.

“The problem is: the rest of the Democrats made Biden’s pledge not to pardon Hunter the foundation of their defence of America,” he said.

“One political party remains committed to the rule of law, and the other doesn’t,” said Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern, in one example offered by the show. Filmed, quite obviously, before the pardon was announced.

“We accept the outcome, because that’s how the rule of law works,” said another Congressman, Eric Swalwell, referring to the outcome in Hunter’s gun trial.

“The justice system that convicted his only surviving son is the same justice system he’s vowed to protect,” said a very earnest Jen Psaki, formerly the White House press secretary and now a host on MSNBC.

“And if that doesn’t tell you who Joe Biden is, I don’t know what does.”

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki now hosts a news show on MSNBC. Which seems a little problematic, to me. But perhaps I'm being naive here.

So much for that, huh?

“Now look at the dance Democrats have to do,” said Mr Stewart.

This was followed by multiple clips of Democrats who had firm opinions about the rule of law before, when it applied to their political opponents, but far squishier opinions now. One particularly funny exemplar of the genre even used the words “witch hunt”, which are so wedded to Mr Trump at this point that he should probably trademark them.

“The Democrats made this case an example of why Americans should believe in our system,” Mr Stewart said of the Hunter case.

“And it’s hard! Democrats have the tougher road of defending our institutions and systems as being flawed, but still valuable. Republicans just run on blowing this s*** up.

“But at every turn, Democrats keep getting caught trying to create a purity test for a system that they can’t seem to pass themselves.”

And that about sums it up. It’s the hypocrisy wot lost it.

Originally published as Jon Stewart eviscerates Joe Biden over decision to pardon his son, Hunter