(The Lion) — A former advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton has blasted President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter as part of a scheme to “shakedown” foreign “adversaries” of millions of dollars to benefit the Biden family.

Mark Penn, who previously served as a pollster to then-President Bill Clinton, and then advised Hillary Clinton on several campaigns, called the pardon “disgraceful” on X.

“This was not a pardon of just Hunter Biden but of Joe Biden himself as his son ran a scheme with Joe’s brother to shakedown adversaries of over $20 million and then didn’t even pay taxes on it. And the loot was distributed even to grand children,” Penn wrote.

Penn said that the pardon was just one of many issues about which Biden lied to the American people.

As the Associated Press noted, Biden, prior to the November general election, repeatedly promised not to pardon his son. That promise was a part of the Democratic campaign to convince America it was the party of the rule of law.

“Biden of course falsely claimed he would not pardon his son, and so what else was Biden falsely saying before the election that he would have done had he been elected? We will never know but we sure can guess …,” Penn added.

In his pardon message, Biden claimed that politics was the motivating factor in the prosecution of Hunter Biden.

“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” said President Biden in a statement.

Biden claimed that charges against Hunter were only leveled after political opponents in Congress “instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.”

Those comments seemingly refer to a plea deal federal prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s attorneys negotiated on his failure to pay taxes on $1.5 million in income from 2017 and 2019.

In his pardon statement, the president complained the deal was killed by GOP members of Congress.

In fact, as The New York Times accurately noted, the plea deal was killed by a federal judge overseeing the case because some highly unusual features of the deal raised legal eyebrows.

The Times said the deal “violated the basic tenets of federal guilty pleas: that any agreement not have any side deals.”

Indeed, the Biden pardon encompasses not just the crimes of tax evasion to which Hunter already pleaded guilty, but is a “full and unconditional” pardon of any federal crimes Hunter may have committed from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024.

Politico said the start date of the pardon is not coincidental.

In April 2014 Hunter joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, while his father was still vice president.

Republicans have contended that Burisma and other corporate deals struck by Hunter during that time were influence-peddling schemes by the Biden family, including Joe Biden, to cash in on the White House, charges they have yet to fully substantiate.

But the breadth of the pardon lends weight to the accusations.

Politico called the pardon “an extraordinary political act with extraordinary legal breadth,” comparing it to President Gerald Ford’s pardon of former President Richard Nixon.

“I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, told Politico.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a rumored Democratic presidential contender for 2028, said Biden tarnished his legacy by the pardon.

“I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” said Polis. “This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”

Polis isn’t the only Democrat besides Penn bothered by the pardon.

Liberal media across the board is sharing pushback by Democrats who are worried it could hurt the 2026 and 2028 election races.

“I’m not saying this is going to be the decisive issue of 2026/28 etc,” wrote progressive pollster Nate Silver on X. “Probably second tier. But both the ethically *and politically* correct behavior is to call it out.”