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President Joe Biden’s issuance of an unprecedented blanket pardon immunizing Hunter Biden for a decade-worth of crimes known and unknown is a hypocritical, norm-eviscerating disgrace. But this historic black mark ought not to divert our focus from the fact the pardon is critical to a continued cover-up transcending the First Family’s national security-imperiling corruption.

The gambit aims to do more than just put to bed any further probing of the Biden family’s international influence-peddling scheme that Hunter evidently bag-manned. It also aims to conceal the Deep State’s efforts to shield that scheme from scrutiny. Lastly, it aims to de-link President Biden from his central role in both such efforts — as the asset the Bidens monetized and the executive to whom the national security and law enforcement apparatus ultimately answered.

Rather than burying this story, with justice skirted, the pardon should revive it. For the scandals loom over present public policy matters, from the Russo-Ukrainian War to Deep State politicization. The war has a nexus in part to Obama administration policies then-Vice President Biden led while Hunter represented corruption-plagued Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Meanwhile, the Deep State initiated an impeachment against Trump for pursuing information about the Bidens’ Ukraine dealings, involving alleged misconduct the pardon covers.

The lies and omissions in the president’s statement announcing the pardon make clear the cover-up at play. To read the statement, one would think Hunter was targeted as part of a political witch hunt to “break” Joe. His own Department of Justice (DOJ), the president tells us, pursued Hunter “selectively, and unfairly,” prosecuting him for relatively innocuous offenses even after, in the case of his tax evasion, paying the government back. It did so, in Joe’s telling, only after the president’s “political opponents in Congress instigated” the cases. Those cases should have been disposed of with a “fair, reasonable” plea deal that was on the table, but alas, it crumbled under “political pressure.” “Raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” the president concluded, leaving him no choice but to issue a pardon.

Let’s start with the omissions from the president’s narrative. To read his statement, one would have no idea that:

  • Hunter Biden, who had little experience executing high-stakes international business deals, spearheaded family efforts to monetize Joe’s name and office to the tune of more than $25 million from sources often tied to Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, and Romanian associates;
  • Those monies often came via dubious transactions and flowed down to Biden family members, including even a grandchild, through nearly two-dozen shell companies — seemingly aimed at deceiving those who might seek to follow the money;
  • The taxes Hunter evaded came from these questionable “earnings;”
  • Hunter never fully paid the taxes, since his CIA-protected “sugar brother” Kevin Morris covered Hunter’s tax tab from 2016-19 and authorities let Hunter dodge taxes on the income “earned” during his Burisma tenure beginning in 2014;
  • The feds let statutes of limitation lapse on tax charges associated with the Burisma years;
  • The feds failed to bring alleged bribery, money laundering, and Foreign Agents Registration Act charges in connection with Hunter’s operating of the “family business,” as well as for human trafficking;
  • IRS whistleblowers demonstrated that the feds stymied, sabotaged, and subverted efforts to investigate and prosecute Hunter Biden;
  • Prosecutors rushed to concoct a sweetheart global immunity deal akin to Biden’s ultimate pardon only after the whistleblowers came forward with allegations their colleagues, including at DOJ, were tanking the case;
  • The plea deal ultimately fell apart when federal prosecutors themselves could not defend it under basic questioning from a federal judge;
  • The lead prosecutor, Special Counsel David Weiss, apparently lacked the authority to bring the cases against Hunter Biden until being elevated to that position by Attorney General Merrick Garland after the plea deal collapsed — this despite Garland’s promises that Weiss was fully empowered to pursue justice;
  • The president’s supporters used the Hunter Biden prosecution to claim the justice system was not politicized and weaponized against the president’s political opponents, when in fact the feds were simultaneously prosecuting or had prosecuted Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, more than a thousand January 6 defendants, and pro-lifers, to name a few.

These omissions go hand-in-hand with Joe Biden’s lies big and small.

Hunter Protected from Prosecution

To the president’s claims that Hunter was “selectively” and “unfairly” prosecuted by his own DOJ — a nonsensical argument rejected by multiple federal judges — the highlighted omissions demonstrate that if anything Hunter Biden was selectively and unfairly protected from investigation and prosecution.

Relatedly, the president maintains that Hunter evaded taxes “because of serious addictions,” and that he ultimately paid the government back, meaning he should not have been criminally prosecuted. Yet, as District Judge Mark Scarsi, who presided in the tax case, noted in a scathing rebuke to the president, Hunter admitted in the case that he evaded taxes at times while sober and flush with cash. The IRS whistleblowers dispute the idea that similarly situated offenders would get off without criminal charges.

The collapse of the sweetheart plea deal Joe Biden’s DOJ rushed to concoct gives life to the idea it “would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”

Last but not least among Joe Biden’s lies is his claim that “For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth.”

Beyond the fabulism and dishonesty that has marked every aspect of Biden’s career, perhaps his biggest lies of all have concerned the family business and selling out America to corrupted and/or hostile bidders, which the pardon aims to cover up. Biden lied about his knowledge of and involvement in that business to get elected president and undermine an impeachment inquiry. Then, he lied when he said he would never pardon his son — for cases arising from a probe in large part touching on the influence peddling.

Many Remaining Questions

The lame duck’s pardon distracts us from very live questions.

Among them: What related crimes have gone unprobed and uncharged? Who else was culpable in the crimes and/or cover-ups? To what extent, at this very moment, are the Biden family’s dealings, and the federal officials’ efforts to shield those dealings from the light of day, looming over or influencing current policy with respect to Ukraine, Russia, and China? What leverage do implicated foreign powers have over us? How tainted are associated officials within the bureaucracy? Has a damage assessment ever been done? What steps have been taken in response to it?

Separately, are there plans to identify and sanction all investigators and prosecutors involved in covering up the Biden family’s efforts? Was the Deep State’s knowledge of the Biden family’s dealings used as leverage over them? To what extent is it impacting policy?

More broadly, with the Hunter Biden pardon having been issued, and perhaps other pardons pending, what steps are being taken to deter future officials from running influence-peddling schemes through their families, and investigators and prosecutors from covering them up?

Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter Biden is meant to bury these questions. Instead, it should revive demands for answers to them.

Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, columnist at Newsweek, and a contributor to the New York Post and Epoch Times, among other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten.substack.com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.