With just a tad over a month left in office, Joe Biden gifted his son a literal get out of jail free card with a full and unconditional pardon for any federal crimes ‘he committed or may have committed’ since 2014.

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit uncomfy about the pardon. (Us righteous, lefty elites do enjoy the view up here from our moral high ground).

Papa Joe has repeatedly gone on the record stating he would not consider clemency for his son, all Americans are equal under the law, Hunter being no exception. (Comments that would have been better left unmade).

This week we saw an unapologetic 180.

After overcoming an initial bout of discomfort, I’ve ultimately arrived at a position: Fuckit YOLO, attaboy Joe. Here’s why:

Hunter is no angel. A well documented cocaine addict albeit in recovery, he plead guilty to evading $1.4 million in taxes and was found guilty of lying about his drug use when buying a gun.

While ‘whataboutism’ is not my favourite look, I’m not above it when it’s called for.

As president, Trump pardoned more than 230 people charged with and/or convicted of federal crimes. Most of his pardons were for blatant political or financial gain with consequences for democracy.

He’s also made it very clear he intends to vindicate political violence by pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists.

One of his more colourful familial pardons was of Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s dad. (It’s a hellova story in its own right, tax evasion, prostitutes, extortion, witness tampering, the whole nine yards).

Trump then appointed him the ambassador to France.

Another pardon was a life sentence for drug trafficker Alice Johnson.

I could actually get behind this one, life without parole for a nonviolent first offence doesn’t feel like justice to me. Where I get derailed, Trump granted this clemency after being lobbied by Kim Kardashian, but has since gone on to campaign for the death penalty for drug offences.

Next I consider Hunter’s crimes.

When buying a gun (which he binned two weeks later), he stated on a form that he was not using or addicted to illegal drugs, when he self-admittedly was. Details he included in his 2021 autobiography chronicling his journey to sobriety. He was tried by a Trump appointed judge.

In his tax case, also tried by a Trump-appointee, Hunter plead guilty to not paying $1.4 million in taxes. (Coincidentally the same amount on average Trump’s failed to pay in tax a year, every year, since 2002.) Hunter has since paid these back-taxes with interest and penalties, long before Dad’s pardon.

In his statement, Biden claimed his son has been ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted… by a number of political opponents… taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. There has been an effort to break Hunter. 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.”

So while Republicans and the right are clutching their pearls over this pardon, I’m inclined to remind them people in Trump Towers shouldn’t throw stones. The president-elect is a bankrupted, 34-time convicted felon who brags about evading taxes, claimed he “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” and has pardoned war criminals.

Biden is an old man who’s worked a lifetime in public office and loves his family. He has no more dogs in any fights. His clemency is not for political or financial gain. It is a transparent display of love of a father for a troubled son. One who is a private citizen, not running for office, who’s been dogged relentlessly for years by fruitless political investigations by his dad’s political opponents.

Call me a hypocrite on this one, perhaps I am. I don’t love the pardon, but I’ll allow it.