Did President-elect Donald Trump agree to pardon Hunter Biden?

Did outgoing President Joe Biden, who has said he would not, ask Trump to do it for him?

Or did Trump, who has shown some sympathy toward Biden’s troubled son, offer magnanimously to just do it on his own?

Nobody but the two men know, and they are not talking. But nobody is asking, either.

But a potential pardon from Trump, the incoming president, just might account for the welcoming smile on Biden’s face when the two met, at Biden’s suggestion, at the White House last Wednesday.

The pair met for almost two hours to discuss a smooth transition. And while both said little about the meeting, Trump did tell the New York Post that they discussed the war in Ukraine, the Middle East, the war in Gaza as well as domestic issues.

The fate of Hunter Biden could have been one of those domestic issues. It is sure the pair did not discuss Hitler, fascism or Trump being a threat to democracy. But they could have discussed Hunter Biden.

Hunter Biden faces serious prison time after being found guilty on three gun related charges, as well as for pleading guilty to serious federal income tax charges.

He faces up to 20 years in prison on one or the other cases. Sentencing on both is scheduled for December, just weeks before his father leaves office on Jan. 20.

Joe Biden has repeatedly denied that he would seek to pardon Hunter or seek to commute his sentence once the cases are disposed of in December.

Most recently, Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary, said of Biden pardoning Hunter: “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”

However, there is a good possibility that Trump will do it for him, whether Biden asked or not.

In fact, Trump seems more amenable to a Hunter pardon than Joe Biden does.

“I wouldn’t take it off the books,” Trump said in October during a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, adding “despite what they’ve done to me, where they have gone after me so viciously.”

Give the lack of transition amenities (to say the least) four years ago when Biden succeeded Trump in the Oval Office, a pardon following Hunter’s December sentencing could go a long way to smooth things over this time around.

It might also smooth over some of the outrage among Democrats as well as many Republicans over Trump’s nomination of the generally unloved right wing bomb thrower former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to be attorney general.

It might have been better had Trump nominated Gaetz as ambassador to the United Nations rather than attorney general.

That way Gaetz could have joined all the other clowns in the193-member organization that people have loved to hate for years. The UN hates America too. Gaetz knows how to hate and would have fit right in.

Instead that job Is going to Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York and Gaetz, if confirmed by the Senate, will head the U.S. Justice Department where he will get the opportunity to investigate the people who investigated him.

That was an investigation, since dropped, of alleged sex trafficking of a minor.

Gaetz was also investigated by the House Ethics Committee into alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz resigned from the House days before the committee was expected to release its potentially explosive report.

Since he is no longer a member of the House, the report was not expected to be released.

However, there is nothing stopping committee members from leaking the report — you can count on it — to bury Gaetz if he is still around to face a Senate committee confirmation hearing.

Gaetz was instrumental in the ouster of fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy as Speaker in a bitter GOP House feud in 2023 which has turned many Republicans against him. Payback is a bitch.

It is too late to smooth over Gaetz’s many rough edges. He is a Trump loyalist who will follow Trump’s orders if he becomes head of the U.S. Justice Department.

Elections, as they say, have consequences.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz was instrumental in the ouster of fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy as Speaker in a bitter GOP House feud in 2023 which has turned many Republicans against him. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)