“He thought he would be president again.”

“He thought he would be president again.”

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (R) recently commented on the reasons behind President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter, citing the twists and turns of the presidential election cycle.

Biden, who announced Sunday that he would pardon Hunter Biden over his federal gun and tax charges, had previously vowed to stay out of his son’s legal battles. According to the White House, the about-face was related to President-elect Trump’s retaliatory rhetoric.

“He said it over and over again. He said he wouldn’t pardon his son,” Haley said on her SiriusXM show Friday. “So for all the people who say, ‘But he’s a parent,’ I feel like we would do anything for our kids, but he didn’t have to say that.”

“And you have to ask yourself: Why did he say he wouldn’t do it and then suddenly do it? “I think it’s because he thought he would be president again and be able to enforce the ruling the way he wanted,” she later added.

Haley said President Biden likely assumed that either he or Vice President Harris would win the 2024 presidential election, which allowed him to delay sentencing on the firearms charge against the younger Biden, which would have occurred later this month.

“He wanted to make sure he never served any sentence. That’s why I think he did that because he assumed all along that he was going to be president. Or he assumed all along that Kamala would become president and he could still push, and then I think that didn’t happen,” she said Friday.

“I think things got tough and then he had to do it,” Haley added.

President Biden withdrew his re-election bid in late July, ending a 50-year political career, and endorsed Harris as the front-runner. The decision came amid pressure from other Democrats to resign after a miserable debate against Trump in June.

The vice president’s momentum was strong early in the campaign, but in the end the race went to Trump.

The president-elect, whose threats of revenge have been in the spotlight, also criticized the president for pardoning his son. Trump called the move an “abuse and miscarriage of justice.”

According to a source familiar with the matter, in addition to granting clemency to Hunter, the president has also had discussions with his team about preemptively pardoning some vocal Trump critics. Democrats, apparently divided over the idea, have pushed the president to grant more pardons.

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