The Biden White House, under fire from the right and some on the left for the President’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, after having declared he would not do so, revealed on Monday the circumstances that led to the announcement Sunday evening.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday as President Joe Biden travels to Angola, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggested if Vice President Kamala Harris had won the November election, President Biden would not have pardoned Hunter Biden—before declaring she did not want to get into hypotheticals. She also said that Biden’s son “was singled out,” and “they tried to break his son in order to break him.”

“In a good faith way, if you are looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases,” Jean-Pierre said (video below), “you can’t reach any other conclusion, right?”

“What we have seen, not just us, there’s other people who have commented on the president’s actions,” she added, “and can see that Hunter was singled out, and, because his last name was Biden, because he was the president’s son. That’s what we saw. And so the president believed, enough is enough, and the president took action, and he also believes, that they tried to break his son in order to break him.”

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“Do you think this would have happened if Harris hadn’t lost the election?” ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett asked, according to a transcript posted by CNN’s DJ Judd.

“I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna get into, into the election. It is a no-l can answer that, it’s a no, and what I can say—” Jean-Pirerre replied.

“It’s a no? This would not have happened if Harris hadn’t lost the election? A pardon would not have happened if Harris hadn’t lost the election?” Haslett pressed.

“I can speak to where we are today,” Jean-Pierre explained, “and so I can’t speak to hypotheticals here. Where we are today, the President made this decision over the weekend. He thought about it, he wrestled with it, and for him, he made this decision because he believed his son was being politically–”

“We’re wondering what changed his mind, and obviously the election– in the statement, he refers to, ‘Enough is enough, he thinks that there could be further- it sounds like he thinks there could be further prosecution of Hunter under a Trump administration,” Haslett continued.

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“He didn’t believe that they would let up, right?” Jean-Pierre replied, apparently referring to prosecutors nominated by the incoming Trump administration, who have said they would go after Hunter Biden and many others seen as enemies of Donald Trump. “He didn’t think that they would, they would continue to go after his son. That’s what he believed. And look, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals, to the original part of your question. The President wrestled with this decision. He made this decision this weekend, and he decided to move forward with pardoning his son.”

“Two things can be true,” Jean-Pierre added, according to The Washington Post’s Matt Viser. “The President does believe in the justice system and the Department of Justice. And he also believes that his son was singled out politically.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says President Joe Biden believed “enough was enough” in coming to the decision Sunday to pardon his son Hunter after months of saying he would not do so.

More: https://t.co/5cQpjGMnIl pic.twitter.com/1NOLOeJMg7

— NewsNation (@NewsNation) December 2, 2024

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Image via Reuters

President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is issuing a full pardon for his son Hunter Biden sent shockwaves throughout the media on Sunday, with many on the right expressing outrage and many on the left—although not all—defending his decision. Some legal experts, explaining why the charges should never have been brought, say Biden is right to issue the pardon even after having said he would not.

While many are looking at this through a political lens, not a legal one, President Biden explained both the political and legal aspects in his announcement.

“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.”

Biden began by saying in his statement that, from “the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, 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. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.”

The President did not explain just how far away he kept himself from the prosecution of his son.

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“Biden bent over backwards to keep his hands off this prosecution, at considerable cost to his family,” noted professor of law and former federal prosecutor Kim Wehle, writing at The Bulwark. “He did not remove or change the mandate of the Trump-appointed prosecutor handling the case, even as that prosecutor’s investigation was granted special counsel status last year.”

President Biden did allege that, without a full pardon, his opponents would continue to target Hunter Biden.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”

“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. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Eric Holder, who served as the U.S. Attorney General during most of President Barack Obama’s two terms, weighed in on the Hunter Biden pardon.

“Here’s the reality. No [U.S. Attorney] would have charged this case given the underlying facts. After a 5 year investigation the facts as discovered only made that clear. Had his name been Joe Smith the resolution would have been – fundamentally and more fairly – a declination. Pardon warranted,” he wrote, saying that the prosecutors should have declined to file charges.

“Ask yourself a vastly more important question,” Holder continued, mentioning Trump’s nominee to head the FBI. “Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s preeminent law enforcement investigative organization? Obvious answer: hell no.”

Other legal experts, including those who have made those very decisions of whether or not to charge someone, agree.

MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg served at the vaunted SDNY, the Southern District of New York Office of the U.S. Attorney.

“As SDNY Criminal Division Deputy Chief, I was responsible for approving charges and non-prosecution requests. I wouldn’t have approved Hunter Biden’s tax or gun cases. If Hunter’s last name wasn’t Biden, I don’t believe he would have been charged. His pardon is justified,” she wrote.

Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor for two decades, says she agrees with Greenberg.

“When I was Chief of the San Jose Branch of the US Attorney’s Office, I, too, was responsible for approving charging and declination decisions. I would not have approved any of the charges brought against Hunter Biden,” de la Vega wrote.

Civil liberties and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler responded to Greenberg, writing: “There’s even more than this going on. [Special Counsel] David Weiss WASN’T going to charge either of these (he hadn’t even investigated gun crime before Statutes of limitation expired). But he did bc of political pressure from House and Trump (and threats to his family). So the charges are problem.”

“Folks don’t seem to understand why Biden pardoned Hunter from 2014 to present,” Wheeler also wrote. “That’s because David Weiss had repeatedly decided he couldn’t charge Burisma allegations from 2014 and 2015, but Kash Patel and others were insistent he should be charged for something w/Burisma.”

“Effectively, a prosecutor twice decided that 2014-2015 — the heart of Trump’s claims about Hunter Biden — couldn’t be charged, but with Patel coming in at FBI, Hunter had to expect that prosecutorial decision would be revisited,” she added.

Juliette Kayyem, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School/John F. Kennedy School of Government, writes, “True: Biden said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter. Also true: Whatever Biden said may have been legitimately superseded by intervening events, such as Patel’s nomination to the FBI.”

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And she scolded the press: “If all reporters are tweeting is that Biden changed his mind, perhaps do some reporting as to why.”

A CNN national security analyst, Kayyem predicted on-air on Sunday (video below) that Trump’s FBI pick, Kash Patel, is “going to go after Trump’s political enemies, likely the Biden family, the Cheneys, people who had been in the involved with the January 6th. Committee, just simply to sort of scorch the earth against him.”

“I’m not saying they’ll end up in jail, but he’ll start investigations simply to sort of whitewash Trump’s involvement with incitement, illegalities, Russia, whatever it is,” she explained. “So that’s that’s we know that’s going to happen and that’s why Biden has to consider whether he’s going to pardon his son at this stage. But what we do know is Trump’s not messing around.”

On Sunday, Law & Crime reported that, “Hunter Biden’s legal team released a report over the weekend that included a ‘stark warning’ that the first son may face retribution at the hands of incoming President-elect Donald Trump. With the election of the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president, the ‘threat against Hunter is real,’ his lawyers claim. The report was released on Saturday ahead of President Joe Biden issuing a full federal pardon for his son on Sunday night.”

“’Here, in one place, is the complete and reprehensible history of the political persecution of Hunter Biden,’ one of Biden’s lawyers, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement,” Law & Crime reported, pointing to a “52-page report, obtained by the Washington Post and Washington Examiner, [that] laid out the criminal prosecutions that led to convictions for Hunter Biden.”

“This is a seven-year saga propelled by an unrelenting political desire to use a son to hurt his father,” Lowell also said.

Watch the video below or at this link.

“Biden only has a few weeks to pardon his son. All I know is that Trump isn’t messing around (with the Patel pick).”
I spoke on @cnn this afternoon about what Patel would mean for Biden. This evening, Biden pardoned his son. pic.twitter.com/THJ93gDPn7

— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) December 2, 2024

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Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as the U.S. Surgeon General during the first Trump administration, is warning Republicans that they will own any disease outbreaks that occur on their watch. President-elect Donald Trump has made controversial nominations for public health roles, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (HHS), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (NIH), and Dr. David Weldon (CDC), among others.

“Republicans must understand,” said Dr. Adams, who is a former Vice Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), “they’re gonna own any and all preventable outbreaks / harm moving forward.”

Adams was responding to his fellow former Trump administration official, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who served as the Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but left before the COVID pandemic.

“We face a grim and avoidable resurgence of once vanquished childhood infectious diseases if we follow down a current path now being laid in Washington,” Dr. Gottlieb had warned.

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“Good points from Dr. Gottlieb here,” Adams said, referring to Gottlieb’s remarks and his CNBC interview. “I’ve spoken with him, and know both he and I want the next administration to do well- because their failure is America’s failure.”

Gottlieb also warned that actions Trump’s nominee to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), RFK Jr. (photo) may take “will cost lives in this country.”

“You’re gonna see, remember, you’re gonna see measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates go down. And like I said, if we lose another five percent [vaccinated], which could happen in the next year or two, we will see large measles outbreaks,” Gottlieb predicted, referring to the MMR vaccination the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends, one of more than a dozen on the CDC’s schedule.

Adams also said, “My advice to the new administration – focus 100% on improving the nutrition and safety of our food supply. Lean into the chronic disease issue. And just stop talking about vaccinations. Let your legacy be about truly extending life expectancy, and not about measles and pertussis.”

Gottlieb had warned that pertussis, a highly contagious infectious disease commonly known as whooping cough, “is certainly something people need to think about right now. Like I said, there’s outbreaks in multiple states, and that’s only gonna get worse.”

Adams alleged that Democrats “in many cases unfairly placed all the blame for Covid on Trump and Republicans, but now Republicans are setting THEMSELVES up to take blame for a resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases, and every kid who ends up harmed.”

In 2021, The Guardian reported that the U.S. “could have averted 40% of Covid deaths,” according to a “panel examining Trump’s policies.”

At least 1.2 million people in America have died of COVID.

RFK Jr. is seen as an anti-vaxxer despite his opposition to the label.

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“In speeches spanning 6 years,” NBC News this week reported in published video, “RFK Jr. shares conspiracy theories about vaccines, likens scientists to Nazis.”

“In remarks at AutismOne conferences in 2013, 2017 and 2019, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likened vaccinating children to putting them in ‘Nazi death camps’ and falsely alleged a cover-up of vaccine injuries similar to the child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.”

According to The Hill, “Kennedy’s position would give him significant power over the agencies that regulate vaccines, and he could potentially seek to reduce vaccine funding requests, withdraw vaccine recommendations and restrict legal protections for vaccine makers, among other actions.”

He has claimed if confirmed he won’t “take anyone’s vaccines away,” but  he could also “delay or revoke vaccine recommendations.”

“Vaccines have helped save the lives of more than 154 million people across the globe over the last 50 years, according to the World Health Organization. But there are a very small number of people who have been injured by some vaccines,” The Hill notes. “As a result, drug companies are cautious when making vaccines, and legal protections have been in place to shield vaccine makers from lawsuits in most cases since the 1986 passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.”

BBC News reports that Kennedy “said at a rally in Arizona earlier this month that he plans to fire and replace 600 employees at the NIH – which oversees vaccine research – as soon as Trump takes the White House.”

“The longtime lawyer also said last month that he intends ‘to have every nutritional scientist’ in the health and agriculture departments fired on day one of a Trump presidency because he alleges they are co-opted by corporate interests.”

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Image of RFK Jr. via Reuters