policy
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter on Sunday night, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence on federal gun and tax convictions and reversing his earlier guarantees not to make use of the extraordinary powers of the presidency to profit his members of the family.
The Democratic president had previously said he would neither pardon nor commute his son's sentence following his convictions within the two cases in Delaware and California. The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his sentence following his conviction within the gun case and his guilty plea on tax charges, and lower than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is ready to return to the White House.
It caps a long-running legal saga surrounding the president's son, who publicly announced in December 2020 – a month after Joe Biden's victory in 2020 – that he was under federal investigation.
In June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son stood trial within the Delware gun case: “I will abide by the jury's decision. I will do that and I will not forgive him.”
It was only on November 8, days after Trump's victory, that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger Biden, saying, “We've been asked this question several times.” Our answer is not any. “
In an announcement released Sunday evening, Biden said, “Today I signed a pardon for my son, Hunter,” and claimed his son's prosecution was politically motivated and a “miscarriage of justice.”
“The prosecution in his cases came only after several of my political opponents in Congress incited them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said. “No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases could come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was chosen solely because he is my son.”
“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president make this decision,” Biden added, claiming he made the choice this weekend. The president spent the Thanksgiving holiday with Hunter and his family in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
He was convicted in June in federal court in Delaware of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018, when, prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form and said he had not used drugs illegally or was hooked on them .
He was scheduled to go on trial in September within the California case, through which he was accused of failing to pay no less than $1.4 million in taxes. But he surprisingly agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges just hours after jury selection was set to start.
Hunter Biden said he pleaded guilty within the case to spare his family more pain and embarrassment after the gun trial revealed salacious details about his struggles with a crack cocaine addiction.
The tax charges carry a sentence of as much as 17 years in prison, and the gun possession charge carries a sentence of as much as 25 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines called for much less time and it was possible he would avoid prison time altogether.
Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he would never take the relief given to him as a right and vowed to dedicate the life he has rebuilt “to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
“I acknowledged and took responsibility for my mistakes in the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that were exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political purposes,” the younger Biden said.
A spokesman for special counsel David Weiss, who brought the cases, didn’t reply to messages looking for comment Sunday evening.
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