President Joe Biden’s “full and unconditional pardon,” which he issued Sunday evening for his son Hunter Biden, covers many topics: for crimes that Hunter “committed during the period from January 1, 2014 to December 1, or “, 2024”, including cases he committed in Delaware (for which he was sentenced on June 11) and in California (for which he was convicted on September 5 pleaded).

In the accompanying statement, the president made it clear that he believes Hunter Biden was “selectively and unfairly” prosecuted simply because he is his son. Joe Biden wrote, among other things: “I also believe that raw politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”

I, too, believe that the criminal cases against Hunter Biden were the direct result of a political campaign by Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters to attempt to attack Joe Biden.

As a prosecutor, you have the opportunity to exercise what we call “prosecutorial discretion.” That is, you can use your professional judgment to decide which cases to prosecute, and you can decide, within reason and applicable laws and procedures, how to resolve those cases. If you are a lower-level prosecutor, your discretion as a prosecutor may be limited: it may depend on the instructions and priorities set by the senior prosecutor for your office, etc. But in Hunter Biden’s investigation, special counsel David Weiss cannot say he was prevented from exercising his prosecutorial discretion because He was the main prosecutor in these cases.

The tortured history of the cases speaks volumes about why these cases were politically motivated and unprecedented in their prosecution:

Hunter Biden was investigated by the Justice Department for five years. After that five-year investigation, Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware David Weiss reached a non-prosecution agreement with Biden’s lawyers. Weiss then backtracked, eventually insisting that Biden instead plead guilty to two tax offenses (for failing to file a tax return) and that he enter into a pretrial diversionary tactic on a firearms possession charge. Biden agreed to these new terms in June 2023 and both sides submitted his written diversion agreement to the court.

A very important part of Hunter Biden’s deal was a mutually agreed upon immunity provision. On the day of Biden’s confirmation hearing, the federal judge in Delaware questioned the scope of the immunity provision in the agreement. But she never killed the deal; She asked the parties to clarify immunity.

At this point, Trump and his team went after Weiss in full force. Weiss was publicly attacked and criticized. At one point, Trump wrote on social media: “Weiss is a COWARD, a lesser version of Bill Barr who never had the courage to do what everyone knows should have been done.” Instead of clarifying the deal, that which he himself had negotiated and had already approved, and although there was no new evidence to justify changes, Weiss rejected the agreement and insisted that Hunter accept the new terms. He also got Attorney General Merrick Garland to give him special counsel status.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers argued that Weiss’ appointment as special counsel was problematic because he was appointed unlawfully. A special prosecutor is to be appointed from outside the US government, and apparently Weiss was and remains the US attorney for the District of Delaware. He should not have been allowed to serve as special counsel in the Hunter Biden cases. When Hunter Biden moved to dismiss his lawsuits on this basis, his request was denied.

Still, in a surprising about-face, Weiss charged Hunter Biden with three gun crimes in Delaware and nine tax crimes in California. It is worth exposing the legal hypocrisy in these allegations to illustrate how unprecedented these prosecutions were:

Hunter Biden owned a firearm for a total of 11 days. At no time during those 11 days was the gun loaded or used, and without his knowledge a third party took the gun from him and disposed of it in a trash can. Before Weiss charged Biden, prosecutors were not convinced the evidence even supported a prosecution. And his drug problem at the time deserved at best a diversion program. In fact, Biden’s lawyers have argued that no person in the history of this Delaware county has ever been indicted on the same facts as Hunter Biden.

There were no aggravating circumstances that would have justified the Justice Department filing firearms charges against Hunter Biden. Hunter’s attorneys noted: “As of 2023, Hunter Biden is the only defendant charged in the District of Delaware with these (gun) offenses. No other case has been prosecuted under these laws in Delaware during this time.”

Biden was also indicted on nine tax counts in California despite paying his delinquent taxes in full, including interest and penalties, in 2021, more than two years before criminal charges were filed. To put years of investigations and harassment behind him, Biden initially agreed, with Weiss’s full consent, to plead to just two misdemeanors for failing to file his tax returns and failing to pay his taxes for 2017 and 2018, respectively. But when Weiss gave in to political pressure from Trump and his Republican supporters, including members of Congress, Weiss did not abide by the original agreement and instead filed nine counts (including three felonies).

But perhaps the most obvious evidence that Hunter Biden was a selective prosecutor is that other people were able to resolve their cases with administrative or civil penalties or verdicts. They were not prosecuted. But then again, her last name wasn’t “Biden.”