Joe Biden’s predictable pardon of Hunter didn’t threaten his reputation – it cemented an already corrupt legacy

At a noisy holiday party, a friend pulled me aside for a quiet conversation. He’s long been a major Democratic donor in New York and nationally but has grown increasingly disenchanted with the party’s far-left policies.

“You were right about Trump,” he whispered, before delivering the bombshell: “And I voted for him.”

We shook hands and laughed.

The election resulted in numerous Dems switching sides, but my friend’s conversion stands out because it shows Trump cut into the top ranks of the party hierarchy. And the conversation came even before President Biden’s pardon proved another shock to Dem officials and their propaganda outlets.

The horror at Biden’s betrayal of his promise not to pardon Hunter recalls the story about the newspaper astrologer who was surprised when he was fired: If he was any good, he would have seen it coming.

Misplaced belief

So it is with the Dems and media stenographers who are barking mad at Biden. Did they really believe his pledges not to pardon his son under any circumstances? 

Once he was convicted, a pardon was inevitable. How did they not see that coming?

What will they do when he pardons his brother, Jim Biden?

Claims that the Hunter pardon threatens Biden’s legacy suggests the suckers actually believed the Hitler-hysteria that Trump was a threat to all that is pure and good and that Biden was an honorable and honest man.

Oh, please. 

The pardon doesn’t threaten Biden’s legacy. It cements it.

He’s been corrupt for decades, as the family influence-peddling scheme proved. Those who refused to consider the possibility that Joe personally profited from the estimated $20 million foreign sources paid his son and brother didn’t lack for evidence. 

They simply refused to see the evidence. 

These are the same people who never acknowledged the impact that inflation, the open border and the rush to impose radical cultural changes were having on so many voters, including significant numbers of black and Latino Dems. 

They apparently believed that Bidenomics was working and that more illegal immigrants were a good thing. Anybody who didn’t agree was wrong or a MAGA crazy.

I say “apparently” because they had to know that Biden was a historically unpopular president, but they kept finding ways to protect him and blame voters. To say they were motivated by their hatred for Trump is to state the obvious. 

Liberal media infighting

In that context, the public feuds breaking out among the guilty, with some at MSNBC attacking The New York Times and others, add relish to the spectacle. A circular firing squad of malignant actors is a joy to watch.

The shootouts are early signs of the enormous consequences likely to result from Trump’s victory and Biden’s pardon.

The combination of the two events adds jet fuel to the emerging “Trump effect,” which has seen foreign leaders, both friend and foe, openly and instantly ­recalibrate their relations with Washington. 

It is noteworthy that Trump already has met with or talked to leaders from Mexico, Canada, Israel and others. Hamas and Iran have been warned about the fate of the hostages and he is traveling to Paris for the reopening of ­Notre-Dame.

Biden, meanwhile, is the ultimate lame duck and got out of Washington for a trip to Angola, where he boasted about being the first president to visit sub-Sahara Africa. No doubt some overpaid aide suggested it would be good for his legacy. 

The legacy impulse probably explains his recent trip to Peru and Brazil, where he looked befuddled while handing out millions of American dollars for a ­local train line.

And Kamala Harris is . . . who cares?

It’s as if the torch already has been passed and Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 will be a mere formality.

By then, domestic consequences of the election and the pardon also will be taking shape. The total collapse of the Biden-Harris administration and the GOP sweep of Congress has opened major running room for Trump, and he will not hesitate to press his advantage.

One of the two clearest opportunities is the need for a full house-cleaning at the Department of Justice. Not that Trump needed any help making the case that the agency is riddled with corruption and routinely engages in political targeting, but Biden provided it.

By justifying his pardon by claiming the cases were “infected” by politics and that his son “was singled out only because he is my son,” the president undercut the Dem resistance.

Even the Times was forced to admit on Tuesday’s front page that “With Pardon, Biden Echoes Rival’s Gripes.”

In reality, the difference is like night and day. Trump was repeatedly targeted for prosecution because of his party and policies, and Biden made it clear to Attorney General Merrick Garland that he wanted Trump prosecuted. 

Hunter Biden, on the other hand, got clear preferential treatment as the five-year probe into his criminal scheme was slow-walked under Garland. It would have expired with no felony ­charges except for the emergence of two brave IRS whistleblowers. 

Joe’s outcast AG

Nonetheless, Biden’s complaint about his son’s case helps pave the way for a Trump overhaul. 

The double-team makes Garland an outcast, a fate well deserved. His tenure saw the DOJ squander enormous amounts of public trust by repeatedly meddling in politics. Good riddance to him.

Similarly, FBI Director Christopher Wray added to the cratering credibility with his see-no-evil defense of anything and everything. He wasn’t as corrupt as James Comey, but that’s hardly a compliment.

The other policy where Trump can have a big, fast, impact is the border. Although the deportation project will take time to organize and show results, stopping the invasion can happen ­almost overnight. 

His threat of heavy tariffs on all products from Mexico and ­Canada instantly got the attention of those country’s leaders. I believe both will commit to stop the flow of illegals and drugs into the US because they know Trump, unlike Biden, is serious and willing to use punishing tariffs to get results.

Beyond policies and personalities, there is another dimension to Trump’s victory. The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said it best when he noted, “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society.”

It’s not a coincidence that the far left has been winning the culture wars for decades, and that American society is failing on many fronts. The two trends are linked.

Trump’s victory offers a chance for conservatives and moderates to slam the brakes on the radical agenda that is tearing our country apart. Dismantling and defunding the DEI complex in government and academia and halting the noxious spread of biological men in women’s sports are prime examples of how he can move the government back into the middle of the cultural spectrum where it belongs.

His promises to do exactly that help explain why he won such a commanding victory.