The Hunter Biden pardon was not the end of the legal questions surrounding the Biden circle—it's the beginning. In order to stop the coming firestorm from arriving at his family's doorstep, Biden will have to do more than just pardon his son—he's going to have to do much more. That's because a Republican Congress is incentivized to question Hunter Biden and pick apart the rest of the White House.

Hunter Biden's pardon is very broad. As I noted earlier this week, it covers nearly 11 years from January 2014 to December 1, 2024. That period covers Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine and everything rippling out from there. It covers any act he committed or may have committed. It's a blanket protection the likes of which we haven't seen since Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon for all acts made during his time in office.

That won't be the end—Biden must cut similar pardons for others in his family and friend circle. The first reason that's true is that Hunter Biden just became the most critical witness to the inner workings of the Biden family, from Joe's time as Vice President through the present Presidency.

Andrew McCarthy at National Review and Alan Dershowitz in The Daily Mail make similar points this week on the impact of the pardon. Hunter Biden can now be dragged before Congress to testify on the 2014-2024 time frame because he can no longer claim a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

The Fifth Amendment right to silence is based on the concept that a person can refuse to testify to incriminate themselves. It's a vital part of a defendant's rights. However, Biden's pardon prevents Hunter Biden from being prosecuted or incriminated by anything in this time frame. He can be forced to testify if there's no fear of incrimination.

You may say, "Well, he could just lie on the stand!" And that's true—that's called perjury. If Hunter Biden lies before Congress or refuses a subpoena, he can be punished by a court. Joe Biden's pardon does not cover events or crimes after December 1, 2024.

That's why Joe Biden's decision to pardon Hunter this early, and not at 11:59 pm on January 19, 2025, matters. Hunter Biden is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to investigations, and he can be a star witness now with previous protections removed.

After Hunter Biden, the next obvious person who will need a pardon is Joe's brother, Jim Biden. There was a serious investigation into Jim Biden's role in a hospital chain that eventually collapsed. That included emails to Qatar, where Jim Biden touted his close proximity to his much more famous brother in attempts to land deals.

From there, it's a matter of how expansive Joe Biden believes he needs to get. Former Watergate Lawyer John Dean is urging Biden to "pardon everyone on Trump's enemies list." Dean isn't the only one in that orbit to suggest something similar. In short, what the legal left is demanding is a series of blanket pardons to protect everyone involved in the White House and everyone else.

If you ever wanted to prove Donald Trump's point on lawfare and the need to drain the swamp, issuing blanket pardons to everyone is Exhibit A. The swamp protects itself.

However, the main issue for the White House is deciding who they will and won't protect with pardons. Biden and his family are the obvious choices. And Joe Biden has the next two months to figure out who to pardon next. Pardoning Hunter Biden early allows him to measure what a potential Trump DOJ response might be or how a Republican Congress may react in the near year.

Biden has a limited amount of time to plot this out, but according to reports, he's known he was going to pardon Hunter Biden going back to June of this year.

In his piece, Andrew McCarthy argues, "I read Hunter's pardon as an indication that President Biden and his advisers are very concerned that the Trump Justice Department will investigate the aspects of the Biden influence-peddling scheme that the Biden Justice Department assiduously ignored. If I am right about that, one has to assume that there will be more sweeping pardons of Biden family members and associates implicated in the scheme."

If that conclusion is easily discernible to conservatives, it's also easily seen by liberals and the White House. Hunter Biden got his pardon after Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Who is up next once they spend Christmas with the Biden family?