Sean Penn Calls Trump’s Reelection a ‘Dangerous Clown Show’ and Weighs In on His Friend Hunter Biden’s Pardon: ‘Any Father That Didn’t Do That Would Have Been Remiss’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Ben Croll Sean Penn is “proud” about President Joe Biden’s most recent pardon. “Any father that didn’t do that would have been remiss,” Penn tells Variety, adding: “I don’t know if I want to have a beer with somebody who wouldn’t have pardoned Hunter Biden, being their son.” As a close friend and confidant of the younger Biden – whose paintings adorn Penn’s walls – the actor calls the now-cleared tax evasion charges and gun-related felonies “one of the horrible hit jobs of all time,” and “existentially insane.” “In part because I am close with him, I have studied the case,” says Penn. “And while there are technicalities within one of the cases that are associated with illegality, there is almost no precedent at all for the aggression with which he was charged.” Despite President Biden’s previous vows to withhold such clemency from his own kin, Penn believes that a vituperative incoming administration – “a clown show, a dangerous clown show,” as Penn describes it – more than forced the president’s hand. “I do not believe that Joe Biden, had he won the presidency, would have pardoned his son,” says Penn. “I don’t think it was a lie; I think it was a change of mind and circumstance.” As a citizen, Penn hopes this change in circumstance will encourage the outgoing administration to be more generous with presidential pardons. “It ain’t January yet,” he says.