The President Joe Biden he forgave his son, the hunteron Sunday night, he removed the younger Biden’s prison sentence on federal gun and tax charges and walked back his past promises not to use the president’s extraordinary powers to benefit members of his family.
The Democratic president said he would not pardon or commute his son’s sentence after he was convicted in the two cases in Delaware and California. The move comes just weeks before Hunter Biden faces his sentencing after his gun trial and guilty plea, and less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
It ends a long-running legal saga for the younger Biden, who publicly disclosed he was under federal investigation in December 2020 – the month of his father’s 2020 victory – and throws the elder Biden’s legacy into jeopardy. Biden, who repeatedly promised Americans that he would restore rules and the rule of law after Trump’s first term, finally used his position to support his son, breaking his public pledge to Americans that he would not do so. .
in June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or exchange for his son, telling reporters before his son’s trial in a Delaware gun case: “I abide by the jury’s decision. I will do that and I will not forgive him.”
As recently as November 8, after Trump’s victory, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out pardoning or pardoning the young Biden, “We’ve been asked that question many times. Our answer stands, which is no.”
The elder Biden has publicly stood by his only living son, Hunter, who descended into serious drug addiction and threw his family life into disarray before pulling himself together in recent years. His political rivals have long used Hunter Biden’s many mistakes as a political jab against his father: At one hearing, lawmakers showed half-naked photos of the president’s son drugged in a seedy hotel.
And House Republicans wanted to use the young Biden’s years of questionable foreign business dealings in an attempt that has since been abandoned. impeach his father, who had long denied taking part in his son’s dealings or profiting in any way from them.
In a statement released Sunday afternoon, Biden said: “I believe in the justice system, but as I have struggled with this, I believe that crude politics has tainted this process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”
“The charges in his cases only came about after some of my political opponents in Congress were incited to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden added. “No reasonable person looking at Hunter’s cases can come to the conclusion that Hunter was singled out only because he is my son.”
“I hope the American people understand why a father and a president would come to this decision,” added Biden, who said he made the decision this weekend. The president spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts with Hunter and his family, and was set to depart later Sunday on his final foreign trip as president before leaving office on January 20, 2025.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June in federal court in Delaware of three counts of racketeering a gun in 2018prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form about not using or being addicted to illegal drugs.
He was due to go on trial in September in the California case, where he is accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and misdemeanor charges in a surprise move hours after jury selection began.
David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Delaware who negotiated the plea deal, was later appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to gain more autonomy in the prosecution of the president’s son.
Hunter Biden said he was pleading guilty in the case to spare his family further pain and shame after the gun trial revealed grim details about his struggles with crack cocaine addiction.
The tax charges carry 17 years behind bars and the weapons charges carry up to 25 years in prison, though federal sentencing guidelines would have called for much less time and potentially avoided prison time altogether.
Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced this month in both federal cases, and the special counsel was brought under a judge’s supervision after a deal with prosecutors that would have saved him prison time. Under the original deal, Hunter was to plead guilty to the felony charges and avoid prosecution on the weapons charge if he stayed out of trouble for two years.
But hearing prayers it quickly became clear last year, when the judge raised concerns about unusual aspects of the deal. He was subsequently charged in both cases.
The broad pardon covers not only these crimes, but also any other crime against the United States that he committed or may have committed or participated in between January 1, 2014 and December 1, 2024.
Hunter Biden’s legal team this weekend released a 52-page white paper titled “Hunter Biden’s Political Litigation,” which describes the president’s son as “a surrogate to attack and injure his father, both as a candidate in 2020 and later as president.” Hunter Biden’s lawyers have long argued that prosecutors bowed to political pressure to indict the president’s son amid fierce criticism of the deal, which Trump and other Republicans have called “sweetheart.”
The two cases against the young Biden were unusual. Criminal tax cases are generally rare, legal experts said, and gun crimes are often brought along with other, more serious charges. In the case of Hunter Biden, his lawyers stated that he had the gun for 11 days and never fired it. And the back taxes he owed were paid back before he had to go to trial.
Rep. James Comer, one of the Republican heads of congressional investigations into Biden’s family, condemned the president’s decision to pardon his son, saying the evidence against Hunter was “just the tip of the iceberg.”
“It’s unfortunate that instead of cleaning up their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability,” Comer said on X, the website that was formerly known by its name. Twitter.
Biden is hardly the first president to expand his pardon powers to benefit those close to him.
In his final weeks in office, Trump has targeted Charles Kushner, the father of son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as multiple allies sanctioned in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump announced his intention to nominate the elder Kushner over the weekend Being the US ambassador to France in his next administration.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s spokesman, who pledged to overhaul and install loyalists at the Justice Department after he was indicted for his role in trying to sway the 2020 presidential election, said in a statement: “That justice system must be fixed and due process restored for all Americans.” , this is precisely what President Trump will do when he returns to the White House with the enormous mandate of the Americans.’
Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he would never accept the relief granted and vowed to dedicate his rebuilt life “to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
“I have accepted and taken responsibility for my mistakes in the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been used to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” the younger Biden said.
Hunter Biden’s legal team filed a motion Sunday night asking the judges handling his gun and tax cases in Los Angeles and Delaware to immediately recuse themselves, citing the pardon.
A spokesman for Weiss did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday night.
