Joe Biden has issued a “full and unconditional” pardon to his son Hunter Biden, covering his son’s convictions on federal gun and tax charges, the US president said in statement released by the White House on Sunday.
The decision marks a reversal for the president, who has repeatedly said he would not use his executive power to pardon his son or commute his sentence.
Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced for his sentence on federal gun charges on December 12. He was to be sentenced in the tax case four days later.
In the statement Joe Biden said he had long maintained that he “would not interfere with the decision-making of the Department of Justice, and I stood by my word even as I watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted.”
But, he argued, “it’s clear that Hunter was treated differently,” adding that the charges in the case “came only after several of my political opponents in Congress incited them to attack me and oppose my election.” .
Hunter Biden was found guilty in Delaware in June on three felonies related to his 2018 gun purchase. He falsely stated on his gun purchase form that he did not use illegal drugs.
he pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges in Los Angeles in September, entering an “open” plea in which the defendant pleads guilty to the charges and leaves the fate of his sentence in the hands of the judge.
Forgiveness covers everything “crimes against the United States which he committed or may have committed or participated in during the period from January 1, 2014. until December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all indicted or prosecuted crimes.”
Joe Biden said Sunday night that his son was being prosecuted “without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a gun as a straw buyer, people are almost never brought to trial on criminal charges solely for how they are filled out a gun shape’.
He noted in the statement that “those who are late in paying their taxes due to serious addictions, but have subsequently paid them back with interest and penalties, generally receive non-criminal judgments.”
Biden accused his political opponents of singling out his fifty-four-year-old son.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of the Hunter cases can come to any other conclusion than that Hunter was selected only because he was my son – and that’s wrong,” he said.
“There was an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of relentless attacks and selective persecution. In trying to break Hunter, they tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe they’ll stop there. Enough is enough.
Speculation that the president would issue a pardon has increased since Hunter was seen with his father on Nantucket over the Thanksgiving holiday.
after the promotion of the newsletter
Donald Trump said in October that he would not be surprised if Hunter Biden received a pardon.
“I wouldn’t take it off the books,” Trump said. “Look, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they did to me, where they persecuted me so viciously … And Hunter is a bad boy.”
Republicans have long focused on Hunter Biden’s troubles — questions surrounding lucrative foreign consultants, broken relationships and an addiction to crack cocaine — in an effort to damage his father politically.
A laptop that Hunter Biden left at a repair shop in Delaware and fell into Republican hands and caused a scandal in the final days of the 2020 election. Republicans claimed that called “laptop from hell,” which includes images of Hunter posing with guns, sex workers and crack cocaine, has been covered up by the pro-Democrat media.
Hunter Biden later published a book, Beautiful Things: a Memoir, which chronicled his struggles as a drug addict. However, the Biden family rejected more serious accusations that Hunter’s lucrative financial deals with businessmen in Ukraine and China amounted to bribery through the family name.
In the statement announcing the pardon, Joe Biden said that throughout his “entire career” he had followed the simple principle of telling the truth to the American people.
“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but while I’ve fought this, I also believe that crass politics infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice — and after making this decision this weekend, there was no point in delaying it any longer.” . I hope Americans will understand why a father and president would make this decision.
