With his son's pardon, Joe Biden cedes the moral high ground and ...
You're the president of a rich and powerful nation, and your son is about to be sentenced for two crimes that potentially carry significant jail time.
You think he's been more harshly treated by the system because of who he is.
In your final days in office, do you use your presidential powers to pardon him?
It sounds like a parlour game moral dilemma, but that's the actual choice faced by outgoing US leader Joe Biden.
As we now know, despite repeatedly insisting he wouldn't do it, Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter.
In his lengthy statement explaining his rationale, the US president said he hoped "Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision".
The fatherThe father part of the equation is relatively compelling.
Joe Biden's life has been marked by personal tragedy.
His baby daughter and first wife died in a car crash in which his two young sons, Beau and Hunter, were injured.
Beau would follow in his father's footsteps in pursuing a political career, becoming attorney-general of the Bidens' home state of Delaware and hoping to become governor.
Biden harboured dreams Beau might one day even become president, but the elder son died of brain cancer in 2015.
Beau's death appears to have propelled his younger brother Hunter further into the depths of drug and alcohol addiction.
Hunter says he has now been sober for more than five years, but as any addict will tell you, it's a daily struggle and there's no telling how time behind bars might have impacted him.
If you're the president, and you're 82 years old and leaving office anyway, pushed out of the race for re-election, why not pardon your surviving son?
The presidentThe president part of the moral dilemma is a lot more complex.
You were in office as four criminal cases were brought against your political opponent, moves Donald Trump claimed amounted to a weaponisation of the justice system.
You took the moral high ground and insisted you would not interfere in the Department of Justice's decision-making even as your son was charged in two criminal cases.
Then you watched as a plea deal his lawyers thought they had in the bag fell apart.
You stood by as he was found guilty by a Delaware court of lying about his addiction issues when purchasing a gun, and as he pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges in California.
Sentencing in both cases was scheduled for later this month.
Biden says he's come to the conclusion that all of this is just not fair.
In his statement, he says people in similar circumstances typically don't face criminal charges, particularly when there are no aggravating factors and when, as in the California case, they have since paid back their tax "with interest and penalties".
"No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong," the president stated.
The politicsBiden argues his son has been the victim of political persecution.
It's here that the outgoing president sounds a lot like the incoming one, Donald Trump, who claims all the charges brought against him are the result of a political witch-hunt.
In both cases, there could be some merit to the arguments.
Hunter's lies on the paperwork he filled out to buy a gun would likely never have come to light or been pursued had he not been Biden's son.
And in a strange parallel, it was paperwork that essentially led to Trump's sole conviction from the four criminal cases he has faced.
A New York jury found the former president guilty of covering up payments to a porn star who said she had slept with him.
It was a convoluted case, which relied on the cover-up being linked to attempts to influence the result of the 2016 presidential election.
It likely would never have been brought if Trump weren't Trump.
By pardoning his son, Biden has left himself open not just to accusations that he is politicising the justice system, but also that the system has been politicised.
"The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election."
Trump couldn't have said it better himself.
The futureTrump heads into this second term seeking revenge on those he says have used "lawfare" against him.
The president's move may further embolden Trump and his allies to exact retribution on members of the Biden administration and the DOJ.
Matt Gaetz has fallen by the wayside as a possible attorney-general, but Trump's nominated replacement, Pam Bondi, appears ready and willing to carry out his stated agenda.
"When Republicans take back the White House," she said in an interview last year, "the Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted — the bad ones — the investigators will be investigated".
Trump's nominated new head of the FBI, Kash Patel, is another loyalist who has threatened to turn the FBI's Washington headquarters into a museum of the deep state.
Trump called Hunter's pardon an "abuse and miscarriage of justice".
Yet Trump should carefully weigh up the pros and cons of launching legal action against his adversaries.
The former president appeared to be spent after the 2022 mid-terms, in which his party and preferred candidates performed below expectations.
Setting aside questions about whether or not they were politically motivated, the filing of criminal indictments against him turned into a huge political boost.
Many of Trump's supporters bought into his arguments that he was being unfairly treated.
That narrative — and his mugshot — turbocharged support for him as he campaigned for the Republican nomination.
At the next presidential election in 2028, Democrats could potentially capitalise on any perceived victimisation if they are targeted under Trump's administration.
With his decision to pardon his son, Biden has, however, made that trickier for the party.
Democrats will now find it harder to argue they are the party of fairness.
And the president may not be done yet.
He could, as some commentators have suggested, issue wide-ranging pardons to those who have pursued Trump's prosecutions, thus protecting them from any retribution.
Indeed, his pardon for Hunter goes beyond the two crimes he was due to be sentenced for.
It is a "full and unconditional pardon", which includes "but is not limited to" any offences committed over the past 10 years.
The president is essentially shielding Hunter from possible future indictments pertaining to that period, including any that might arise out of his time on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Or, in his final seven weeks in office, Biden could muddy the waters further and issue Trump a pardon for his conviction.
That could take a little wind out of the sails of the president-elect, making it harder for him to argue the system has been rigged against MAGA Republicans.
Pardoning his arch-enemy might seem improbable, but in today's America, it's not impossible.
The parlour games could be just beginning.
