Biden's pardon of son, Hunter, roils Democrats' post-election reckoning: ANALYSIS

President Joe Biden's decision to pardon his son, Hunter, is throwing a bomb in his party's post-election soul-searching.

Democrats are still sifting through the rubble of their loss to President-elect Donald Trump last month, with some in the party blaming a reputation -- justified or not -- as elitists out of touch with everyday voters' concerns while cozying up to other wealthy and well-connected allies.

Now, after months of vows that he wouldn't do so and arguing the justice system treated Trump appropriately, Biden is scrapping his son's supposedly politicized convictions on tax and gun charges, sparking a warning the move fortifies perceptions that the party doesn't keep its word and is playing by its own set of rules.

"This literally reinforces the very challenge that Democrats confronted in the election, which is elites talking to elites convincing each other that they're right. Well, you can't get any more elite than this," said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va.

"It's not the question of pardoning the son. What about everybody else's son?" Kofinis added. "If you're going to take this kind of a dramatic action that's going to benefit a single person in your family, you have a responsibility to go out there and say why. But you can't say the reason why is because the justice system is rigged, because you just spent the last four years saying it wasn't rigged. So, it's not rigged for Trump, but it's rigged for your son?"

Hunter Biden had been convicted on federal gun charges after lying about his drug use on an application for a firearm and had pleaded guilty to nine tax-related charges, including three felonies.

The president's announcement Sunday evening marked a bombshell at the tail end of a holiday weekend. In it, Biden insisted that his son had been "treated differently" after "several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election."

The pardon is also particularly broad, covering all "offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in" from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024, beyond the gun and tax charges.

Republicans swiftly cried foul at the move, lambasting it as a manipulation of justice, particularly after Biden for months said he wouldn't use his power to intervene in his son's legal troubles.

"Joe Biden has lied from start to finish," House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., wrote in a post on X. "It's unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability."

"Tonight's pardon is wrong. It proves to the American people that there is a two-tier system of justice," added Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, who will be the No. 2 Senate Republican in the next Congress.

Democratic lawmakers were tighter-lipped over the pardon late Sunday but were more vocal in their opposition by Monday afternoon.

"Democrats should have been for reforming and curtailing pardon power from Day 1 of the Biden Presidency. As a father, I empathize with President Biden, but we must be the party of reform whether it's about the archaic pardon power, opposing super PACs or broad war powers," Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said on X.

"President Biden's decision to pardon his son was wrong. A president's family and allies shouldn't get special treatment. This was an improper use of power, it erodes trust in our government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests," Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich, added.

Now, some party operatives warned to ABC News, Democrats risked being seen as executing the same behavior they'd been warning against from Trump ahead of his inauguration, making their campaign rhetoric about the justice system's integrity apply to only one side of the political divide.

"It is somewhat toying with [voters]," one Democratic pollster said. "The takeaway, to the extent that there are any left, for the average, independent voter is, is that, both sides are just playing games with each other. They don't mean any of this rhetoric."

The White House Monday sought to play damage control, laying blame at the feet of Republicans who will have unified control of Washington starting later next month and have hammered away at Hunter Biden's legal travails and business ties for years.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden issued the pardon in part "because they didn't seem like his political opponents would let go of it."

"They would continue to go after his son. That's what he believed," she added, declining to speculate on the political fallout of the move.

"Two things could be true. You can believe in the department of justice system, and you could also believe that the process was affected politically," she insisted.

The pardon controversy is coming as some Democrats partly blame Biden's decision to run for reelection in the first place as a reason for Harris' defeat.

While many Democrats expressed empathy for Biden's position as a father, they suggested it marked another reason to put the president in the rearview mirror as the party puts together a new playbook for the future -- a separation that, some hoped, could minimize any long-term fallout.

"I think the party is already going to move on from him so deeply and so completely that I don't know that this severs that connection between Biden and the future the Democratic Party any more or any less than it already would have been. If anything, it may quicken it," one senior Democratic strategist said.

"I think it's politically stupid," the person said. "It makes us look bad, and it makes us look like we don't have the moral high ground, and we either need to own that, or we need to own that we need to stop being so preachy. I think it's bad politics, but it's not clear to me what exactly the repercussions will be."

Still, that doesn't mean Democrats who are skeptical of any long-term implications are pleased with the move.

Nearly every Democrat who spoke to ABC News worried that Biden's pardon kicked the door open for Trump to protect people they predicted will be unworthy of pardons. And to fend off any prolonged fallout amid a broader makeover, even theoretical, some suggested that a robust denouncement from party leaders could go a long way.

"It's not going to eliminate it, because Biden is the president of the United States," the Democratic pollster said. "But if Democrats ever hope to reinvent themselves in a post-Biden future, they're going to need to start by denouncing Biden now when it's hard, not in the future, when it'll be easier."