Seventeen months after The Post was the first to report on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, lefty media outlets are finally admitting it's real.

If there’s one thing Joe Biden doesn’t need, it’s more problems. With soaring inflation pushing household budgets into the red, crime rising everywhere, the southern border open to all comers and his agenda stalled in Congress, the 46th president is beyond beleaguered. //

The sudden about-face from media outlets that scandalously said The Post was spreading Russian disinformation in 2020 reflects the likelihood that the Justice Department is close to deciding whether to file criminal charges against Hunter. A federal grand jury in Delaware has been hearing from a flurry of witnesses, indicating the case is coming to a head.

If Hunter is indicted, it’s hard to see how his father’s presidency survives.

That’s because any indictment of the son, no matter how carefully drawn, will inevitably implicate the father. Assuming an indictment would follow the usual prosecutor pattern of connecting the dots to associates to show evidence of Hunter’s guilt, it’s possible the president could be referenced in charging papers.

That would directly contradict Joe Biden’s claims he had no involvement in his son’s business and never once discussed it with Hunter. //

The second escape hatch offers a far more likely scenario: Biden’s Justice Department, already up to its neck in politics, bends to pressure from Dems and refuses to indict Hunter to protect the president.

The Times, in its role as Deep State errand boy, seemed to be laying the groundwork recently when it cited an internal debate among prosecutors about whether civil charges would be more appropriate. The paper reported that Hunter borrowed about $1 million to cover back taxes in hopes he would not be criminally charged and said the payment might make it more difficult to gain conviction at trial.

Among the advantages for the family with a civil case is that Hunter could cut a deal to keep details of the investigation secret, and could keep his law license. The fallout on the president would be minimal.

That would leave the White House where it is now — still failing because of an incompetent president and his disastrous policies.