WATCH: CNN Legal Expert Shreds Biden For ‘Historic Act Of Nepotism’ After Hunter Pardon

The fallout from President Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter reverberated on Monday as mainstream media analysts predicted the “historic act of political nepotism” would tarnish not only the president but also the ability of Democrats to call out a second Trump administration for how the Justice Department is utilized.

Elie Honig, a legal analyst for CNN, explained that the broad scope of Biden’s pardon — encompassing 11 years of Hunter’s past actions and words — is going to haunt Democrats for years to come. “Ordinarily, a pardon will specify a certain case,” something the pardon does in singling out Hunter Biden’s gun case in Delaware and tax evasion case in California, Honig explained. “But what’s different about this one is that it also says this is a full and unconditional pardon for all conduct going back to January 1 of 2014, which means that Hunter Biden cannot be federally prosecuted for anything going back to 2014.” Offenses past then, Honig added, would be precluded by the statute of limitations, effectively immunizing the embattled first son from ever being federally prosecuted for anything that occurred up to the present day.

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Only the pardon of Richard Nixon contained a similar phrase announcing its scope — “full and unconditional” — but otherwise “Joe Biden has pushed to the absolute outer limits of the breadth of the pardon power here,” Honig added.

President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he will use the executive power to pardon certain J6 participants currently or formerly federally incarcerated. Asked if Biden’s move would inhibit Democrats’ ability to charge the Republican with abuse of his authority, Honig agreed undoubtedly. “To be sure. We’re already seeing that with the first reaction from Donald Trump and his team, essentially, which is ‘what an injustice, now we get to do the same thing,’ which is an interesting twist of logic there, but without question there has long been a fair debate on both sides whether Hunter Biden is being treated overly leniently or overzealously because of his status as Joe Biden’s son. I think there are points to both sides of that. But I think that what’s not disputable is this is a historic act of political nepotism,” he said.

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Hunter Biden was set to be sentenced on December 12th after being convicted of lying on a federal form while purchasing a handgun in Delaware, a decision that President Biden said was influenced by politics but has been denied by the Justice Department and special counsel David Weiss. “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,” Biden wrote in a statement on Sunday.

Several Democratic figures condemned the pardoning of Hunter, including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, but the reaction from the left was otherwise muted. Gary Shapley, one of two IRS whistleblowers who came forward alleging the agency was giving Hunter “preferential treatment” in its investigation, lamented the decision in a statement released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee.

“No amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President’s son off the hook for multiple felonies. We did our duty, told the truth, and followed the law. Anyone reading the President’s excuses now should remember that Hunter Biden admitted to his tax crimes in federal court, that Hunter Biden’s attorneys have targeted us for our lawful whistleblower disclosures, and that we are suing one of those attorneys for smearing us with false accusations,” said Shapley and fellow whistleblower Joe Ziegler. “President Biden has the power to put his thumb on the scales of justice for his son, but at least he had to do it with a pardon explicitly for all the world to see rather than his political appointees doing it secretly behind the scenes. Either way it is a sad day for law abiding taxpayers to witness this special privilege for the powerful.”

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