Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of duplicity among leaders of both political parties. Hunter Biden received a fantastic holiday pardon present from his father, President Joe Biden, and United States citizens received a simultaneous stick in the eye. It’s not exactly late-night news justice is unevenly distributed in the U.S., but father pardoning son through presidential powers is uniquely awful.

President Biden apparently believes his son’s prosecution for a variety of felonies was unfairly political. Half the population of federal prison believes the same, but those prisoners have no expectation of early release.

President-elect Donald Trump received his own “pardon” present from the U.S. Supreme Court when he was elected president in November. This election gift from the American people to the soon-to-become president absolved him from scamming us people by paying off a porn star with whom he had consensual sex because he worried about his reputation.

Of course, Trump didn’t have to worry. Voters in 2016 excused his licentiousness and consequent bribery after he pronounced to former President George W. Bush’s cousin Billy Bush he grabbed women’s private parts whenever he had the urge.

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Hunter Biden’s story is similarly odious. No doubt he took as much advantage of his reputation as a Biden as he could get away with for money and sex. Why else would he be put on a board of directors of a Ukrainian energy company? He also used his Biden name to garner business in China. Apparently, millions of dollars flowed his way based on his moniker.

Hunter was also a drug addict. His drug use, money grubbing, brother’s death and father’s fame produced a lot of bad behavior documented at his trial for lying on a gun-purchase document, among other felonies. There’s also the lost-and-found computer that has always seemed inscrutable but kicked up lots of conspiracy theories, which, given this history, are probably true.

Hunter’s deceased brother’s wife, who was in an intimate relationship with Hunter at some point in this sordid history, is now on the hook for taking the illegally purchased gun away from the president’s son and dumping it into a public trash bin. The gun was subsequently found by a senior looking for recyclables. The senior gave the gun to the police who tracked it back to Hunter. How unfair was that? It’s this convolution that creates conspiracy theory rumor-mongering temptations.

President Biden asserted repeatedly, with meaning, he would not pardon his son. As recently as November, his press secretary reiterated the claim. What changed? Has the current president decided he must take seriously the newly-elected president’s avowal that he, Trump, will take revenge on his enemies using the U.S. Justice Department to perform the deeds?

Claims of unfair prosecution have been thrown around left and right. Future President Trump asserted his storage of government documents in a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago was innocuous even though the National Archives called it criminal.

President Biden also had government documents in his home, though it has never been stated they were stored in a bathroom. He wasn’t threatened with prosecution because his investigator declared him to be too old and fuzzy to know how naughty he was. Biden’s people objected to the old and fuzzy notion, but of course that was a bit of deception as became clear during Biden’s presidential debate.

Biden also said when he ran for president in 2020 he wouldn’t run again in 2024. As Trump proved with his re-election, the perks of presidential office are too great to give up gracefully. Based on Biden’s retraction of his promise not to run again, no one should be surprised he reneged on the no-pardon assertion.

Trump won re-election partly by courting Arab-American voters, especially in Michigan, who reject Biden’s military support of Israel. It’s hard to see how Trump’s engagement with Arab-Americans comports with his appointments of Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. Both claim to be Christian Zionists, meaning Jews must rule in the ancient lands of Israel as preparation for the second-coming of Jesus and the subsequent predicted rapture.

Trump has selected the father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany, Massad Boulos, as senior advisor on Arab and Middle East affairs. Boulos did the hard work in Michigan of bringing Arab-American voters into Trump’s fold. As an addendum, Trump appointed Ivanka’s father-in-law, convicted but Trump-pardoned felon Charles Kushner, as ambassador to France.

Based on Christian Zionism and statements from Huckabee the Israeli-occupied West Bank doesn’t exist because the real names for that land are Judea and Samaria, Arab voters may now wonder how they fit into Trump’s schemes.

American voters are always at the butt-end of presidential dissembling. The familial connections involved in these deceits, however, are extra excruciating. In drama, there’s a word for tragedy that’s so over-the-top it borders on comedy. It’s categorized as a “travesty.” Looks like the next four years will fit that dramatic genre. The long-running farce will need a title, something like “It’s Springtime for Americans in America!”

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.