Hunter Biden's pardon is good news for Jan. 6 convicts

The "political persecution" wielded by Joe Biden to pardon his son Hunter has considerably paved the way for Donald Trump to pardon many of those convicted for their participation in the Jan. 6 protests. The president-elect himself noted as much in his first message about Biden's controversial gesture to his son, asking on Truth Social whether he included the "hostages" from the Capitol protests.

With his statement to justify pardoning Hunter for illegal gun possession and tax evasion, the president himself has dealt a mortal blow to the credibility of the justice system. His arguments about the "special and selective" treatment the first son received from the president have reinforced Trump's continued complaints that he was suffering "a political witch hunt" at the hands of the Biden administration and that Jan. 6 convicts were subjected to a political trial that did not respect their rights.

"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 – and that is wrong. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision."

The politicization of the justice system

These accusations against the politicized treatment of the justice system to his son as a reason to pardon him are precisely what Donald Trump has been denouncing for years about the Jan. 6 defendants. The judges themselves have confirmed this with the latest sentences of those on trial for what happened after Biden's victory over Donald Trump in 2020.

For Fox News legal editor Kerri Urbahn, Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter is in fact a "gift" to Trump to fulfill his promise to pardon those convicted of involvement in the Capitol protests in 2021. Urbahn points out that in addition to questioning the impartiality of the justice system and the work of Attorney General Merrick Garland, Biden has left the media and Democratic politicians without any rationale to object to any such action.

The period covered by the pardon covers Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine

Biden's move, according to several experts, means "lowering the bar" on pardons and makes obtaining them "much easier." In addition, many legal analysts pointed to a fact that they consider as relevant as the fact that the beneficiary is the president's son: the length of the period (more than a decade) covered by the pardon, as well as the list of possible federal crimes for which he could not be brought to court.

As former prosecutor Trey Gowdy told Fox, the time frame "could really could not be more sweeping, to be honest. The time frame included in the pardon covers almost all federal statutes of limitations. For the vast majority of federal crimes, this covers this time period and means that charges cannot be brought."