BREAKING: White House refuses to say past assurances Biden would not pardon Hunter were lies

Jean-Pierre was forced to walk that back during a press gaggle aboard Air Force 1 as President Joe Biden, staffers, and the press corps headed to Angola. "Topic of the day," a reporter began, "You have said repeatedly yourself and since the election and the president has said for months that no pardon was coming. I just wanted to ask you, could those statements now be seen as lies [by] the American people? Is there really a credibility issue here given this announcement?"

"First of all," Jean-Pierre replied, "one of the things that the president always believes is to be truthful to the American people. That is something that he always truly believes. And if you see the end of his—I assume that you read his statement and you look at the end of that statement, and he actually says that, the first line of the last paragraph, um. And respects the thinking and how the American people will actually see this, and his decision-making."

She encouraged people to "read in full the president's statement" and said that she thinks he "lays out his thought process," and says that "he came to this decision this weekend." He wrestled with it, she said, "because he believes in the justice system" but that the "war politics infected the process and led to a miscarriage of justice." She said the "facts of Hunter's cases" show, per the president, "that you can't reach any other conclusions."

"Hunter was singled out because his last name was Biden, because he was the president's son, that's what we saw," she said, going on to say that the "president believed enough is enough." The statement referenced Hunter's drug use as well, saying that his crimes were those of an addict struggling with the compulsion of addiction. Jean-Pierre said that the charges against Hunter were an attempt to hurt the president.

She did not answer the question of whether or not the American public should believe that past denials of a potential presidential pardon for the first son should be considered lies. Reporters continued to ask Jean-Pierre about the pardon, with one asking if Biden and his son discussed "the possibility" during their Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket. It was reported by Politico that the decision was made over the holiday.

Jean-Pierre had no answer for that, either, saying the president "mad the decision himself." She said she has been "consistent" in that she would not "talk about private conversations" among the family. She has also been consistent in her claims that Biden would not pardon his son.

Another reporter asked about the statement that accompanied the public announcement of the pardon, saying "The reasons he laid out in his statement, if we assume those to be correct, that's been correct, these are not changes that occurred this weekend. So, what changed his mind this weekend?"

Jean-Pierre referenced the statement, saying, "It's in his statement. He wrestled with it, he thought about. And he believed and what he saw was that his son was singled out, and so he made the decision, and once he made the decision, which was this weekend, he decided to move forward with it and not to wait. Um, and y'know, I think um he truly believed that enough is enough. This is um, we have seen in the last five years or so, the president's political opponents saying this, not even, this is not even the president saying this, they said it themselves, they were going after Hunter Biden and so they made this decision.”