US President Joe Biden greeted his son Hunter Biden at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, on August 19, 2024. – Reuters file
US President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, marking a significant shift from his earlier pledge to refrain from intervening in legal matters involving his son. Hunter had previously pleaded guilty to tax violations and was convicted on firearms-related charges. In a statement, the president said, "Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department's decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted."
The White House had consistently maintained that Biden would not pardon or commute sentences for Hunter, who is a recovering drug addict and has been a target of Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump. "No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son," Biden said in a statement released shortly before departing for a trip to Africa.
The clemency order stated that Biden had granted "a full and unconditional" pardon to Hunter Biden for any offenses committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024. Hunter was facing sentencing for false statements and gun convictions this month. In September, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while spending extravagantly on drugs, sex workers, and luxury items. He was scheduled for sentencing in that case on December 16.
"I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport," Hunter Biden said in a statement on Sunday, adding that he had remained sober for over five years. "In the throes of addiction, I squandered many opportunities and advantages ... I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering."
Republicans criticized the president's decision. Trump questioned on his Truth Social site, "Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!" referring to those convicted for storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, after Trump falsely claimed victory in the 2020 election.
Representative James Comer, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, stated, "Joe Biden has lied from start to finish about his family's corrupt influence peddling activities." The president, whose son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, argued that his opponents had sought to break Hunter through selective prosecution.
Biden noted that people are rarely brought to trial for felony charges related to filling out a gun form, and others who were late in paying taxes due to addiction but paid them back with interest and penalties, like his son, typically received non-criminal resolutions. "It is clear that Hunter was treated differently. The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election," Biden said. "In trying to break Hunter, they've tried to break me – and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough."
In August 2023, lawyers for Hunter Biden claimed that prosecutors had reneged on a plea deal that would have resolved the tax and firearms charges. The president stated in his Sunday statement that the plea deal "would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter's cases." Biden said he made his decision to pardon over the weekend. The president, his wife Jill Biden, and their family, including Hunter, spent Thanksgiving in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and returned to Washington on Saturday night.
"Here's the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further," Biden said. "I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision."
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