Within hours of his dear father gifting him the early Christmas present of a lifetime in the form of an unprecedented pardon for any and all federal crime committed over an 11-year period, Hunter Biden cashed in, presenting the president’s pardon in federal court with a motion to dismiss the felonious first son’s indictment for various tax and gun crimes. Special counsel David Weiss, who has spent nearly seven years now investigating Hunter Biden for everything ranging from illegal lobbying to sex trafficking charges, has offered a futile refutation of Hunter Biden’s motion, but the president’s power to pardon is indeed absolute. Hunter Biden will not face the legal consequences of his crimes.

However, according to the Supreme Court’s 1915 ruling in Burdick v. United States, a pardon confers “an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.” Had the younger Biden merely ignored or rejected his father’s pardon, the pardon itself would imply nothing about the recipient’s guilt. However, by filing the pardon in court, Burdick indicates that Hunter Biden has indeed confessed his guilt.