It was the classic day for a negative news dump, but I didn’t think he’d actually do it. There was no need.
In the PR industry, we’re mostly paid to maximize publicity, but every now and then, we’re paid to minimize it. This is how we deal with negative news — such as an embarrassing legal admission, or a troubling financial disclosure. For a very long time, the time-honored play in the PR playbook was to schedule the release when everyone’s distracted, traveling, or on vacation — the classic news dump on Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the July 4th weekend.
Believe me, it wasn’t accidental that Joe Biden announced his full, unconditional pardon of Hunter Biden late on Sunday evening of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend!
But it was still a weird move, because January 20 is an even better date than Thanksgiving. Dumping your negative news during a holiday is effective, but it’s not nearly as good as disseminating it when a bigger, brighter, bolder story will suck all the oxygen out of the room.
And on January 20, the big news will be the Trump inauguration.
The morning of January 20, 2025, always was (and still is) the optimal time to pardon each and every Biden friend, family member, stooge, consigliere, and sycophant with minimal blowback. It was the obvious PR move! And unlike Republicans, Democrats almost always coordinate their political moves with PR moves — one of the key benefits of being so ideologically aligned with the mainstream media.
Even if the GOP wanted to coordinate its political moves with PR moves, its success rate would still trail the Democrats. PR works best, after all, when the outlets are sympathetic to your cause. When they are, it’s the most cost-effective way to publicize your message.
Liberals have an institutional advantage.
But the upside for conservatives is that if you know how PR works, you can “reverse-engineer” the Democrats’ political tactics. All you gotta do is decipher the PR tea leaves.
So why pardon Hunter Biden now?
One theory is the December sentencing date. If Hunter’s sentencing is in December, then you can’t wait ‘til January, right?
It’s a possibility, but I doubt it. These are the Bidens, for crying out loud — the most politically-protected, legally-insulated family in America! And December is during the holidays: I’m sure a creative attorney could think of all kinds of reasons for delays.
All they needed to do was kick the legal can a month or so down the line and then give Hunter his “Get Out of Jail Free” card on January 20.
Another theory is that President Biden is planning something even more controversial for January 20 and needed to clear the political runway. (Gulp.) I don’t think that’s the answer, either, since signing a pardon takes virtually no time; it’s not like pardoning Hunter would preclude anything else.
If anything, the political “hit” from pardoning Hunter has weakened Biden even further. His political capital is essentially gone.
So the other theory that must be considered is this: Perhaps Joe Biden isn’t planning on being president on January 20.
Maybe he’s planning to resign before then.
It could be he’s decided to resign on his own. It could be a favor to (and/or “backroom agreement” with) Kamala Harris. It could be a capitulation to cabinet members who are threatening to evoke the 25th Amendment. It could be a lot of things. But if he’s not planning on being president for much longer, a Thanksgiving pardon would suddenly make a lot more sense.
That’s your tinfoil hat conspiracy theory du jour: The Hunter Biden pardon means that Joe Biden is planning to resign the presidency.
This has been such a wacky, unpredictable presidential campaign, it’d be foolish to discount anything. So I’d put the probability of a Biden resignation at about 33%.
Why only 33%? Because the other theory that must be considered is less Machiavellian and more pompous and self-serving: President Biden might not care about the political game anymore. Instead, he told his aids he wants his kid free and clear by Christmas, and his poor staff had to make the best out of it.
And honestly, that theory rings true, too.
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