President Biden has issued pardons to just 26 people during his term, and granted the commutation of 132 prison sentences. Though he has been criticized for his reluctance to extend clemency, his choices mostly represented the best form of it, wiping away the criminal stains of everyday people who had been unjustly convicted or reducing prison time for those whose sentences were excessive. And his modest record spoke to Mr. Biden’s attempt to project an admirable restraint in using his absolute, easily abused power to overrule the judgment of the justice system.

Then on Sunday, in direct violation of his own pledges not to do so, Mr. Biden pardoned his own son, Hunter. Though he claimed the decision was made out of fatherly love, his explanation also attacked the investigation of his son and, implicitly, his own Justice Department.

This was a significant misstep that could leave lasting damage. It will not only tarnish Mr. Biden’s own record as a defender of democratic norms, it will also be greedily embraced as justification for Donald Trump’s further abuses of pardon power and broader attacks on the integrity of the justice system.

At the most base level, it reinforces the sense that Mr. Trump’s systematic abuse of the pardon system in his first term was not an aberration, that presidents of every party exploit their constitutional privilege to benefit their relatives and cronies, that justice is only for those with the right connections. It is easy to imagine the “they did it too” defenses being offered should Mr. Trump pardon the perpetrators of the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, as he has suggested he will. Hunter Biden’s crimes are not nearly equivalent to the destruction caused by the rioters, but his father’s action muddles the defenses against future abuses.

As Hunter Biden’s firearms and tax cases wound through the courts, the president and his aides repeatedly pledged he would not intervene and would not issue a pardon, even after Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges in September. This was consistent with his broader pledge, central to his campaign and electoral mandate, to protect the independence and integrity of the justice system.

On the day after the Jan. 6 riot in 2021, as he introduced Merrick Garland as his choice for attorney general, Mr. Biden condemned Mr. Trump’s interference in the judiciary and said the nation’s democratic institutions were the nation’s guardrails.

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