CNN host Jake Tapper argued that President Biden’s choice to pardon his son after he and his surrogates denied he would do so is an indictment of his administration.
During the opening segment of his show on Monday, Tapper juxtaposed Biden and his surrogates' denials that he would pardon Hunter Biden with NBC’s reporting that the president had been discussing a pardon for his son with his aides since June.
"President Biden lying about this, of course, makes others in his administration and allies either credulous or complicit, including White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who‘s been saying this for months to the American people," he said, before showing Jean-Pierre denying plans to pardon Hunter multiple times.
"There was, of course, a political benefit to President Biden and his allies telling this lie," Tapper said. "In June, when Hunter Biden was found guilty on three felony gun charges, his father, the president, was still running for re-election against former President Donald Trump and Democrats and progressives saw this as an opportunity to contrast the current and former president."
President Biden issued a sweeping pardon for Hunter Biden on Sunday after he had repeatedly said he would not do so. The first son had been convicted in two separate federal cases earlier this year. He pled guilty to federal tax charges in September, and was convicted of three felony gun charges in June after lying on a mandatory gun purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.
The president argued in a statement that Hunter was "singled out only because he is my son" and that there was an effort "trying to break Hunter" in order to "break me."
One Biden ally Tapper highlighted was MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissman, who had previously praised Biden as truly "living the rule of law, he is living it in the most personal way, he is not pardoning his son, which he could do. He is not doing it because he is living what it means to have a rule of law in this country."
"Living the rule of law," Tapper said with apparent irony, "Beyond the pardon and beyond the lie about the pardon, President Biden is doing what he claimed he would not do. He is undermining his own Justice Department." Tapper went on to quote Biden’s grievances with Hunter’s treatment by the legal system.
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Tapper noted that special counsel David Weiss has since called out the president, saying, "There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case."
