Joe Biden pardons Hunter's gun-wielding, tax-delinquent son, despite a promise not to
US President Joe Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence on gun and tax charges and reversing his earlier promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency to benefit his family members.
The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence after he was convicted in two cases in Delaware and California. The move comes just weeks before Hunter Biden receives his sentence after pleading guilty to gun and tax charges, and less than two months before president-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
It includes the legal saga of the president's son, who publicly disclosed that he was under federal investigation in December 2020 — a month after Joe Biden's 2020 victory — and is wreaking havoc on Biden's legacy. Biden, who repeatedly promised the American people that he would restore norms and respect for the law after Trump's first term, ended up using his position to help his son, breaking his public promise to the American people that he would not do such a thing. .
In June, Biden ruled that his son would be pardoned or commuted, telling reporters during his son's Delaware gun trial, “I abide by the jury's decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”
As recently as November 8, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a pardon or sympathy for the younger Biden, saying, “We've been asked that question many times. Our answer is no.”
Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has been convicted of three counts of murder. He is the first child of a sitting US president to be found guilty of a crime, and both Republicans and Democrats have joined the ranks now to make points about the state of the justice system.
In a statement released Sunday evening, Biden said, “Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” saying his son's prosecution was politically motivated and “a miscarriage of justice.”
“The charges against him came after many 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 crimes would come to any other conclusion than that Hunter was only nominated because he is my son.”
“I hope that the American people will understand why my father and the President will reach this decision,” added Biden, saying that he made this decision this weekend. The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Mass., with Hunter and his family.
Hunter was convicted in June in Delaware federal court of three counts of purchasing a gun in 2018 in which, prosecutors say, he lied on a federal form that he was not an illegal user or drug addict.
Republican lawmakers have blasted former Twitter executives for allegedly suppressing negative content about US President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, in a hearing that suggests the GOP is making good on its promise to investigate Biden and his family.
He was due to appear in court in September in a California lawsuit accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he unexpectedly agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and criminal charges hours after jury selection began.
Hunter Biden said he is pleading guilty in this case to spare his family the pain and shame after the gun case revealed painful details about his struggle with cocaine addiction.
Tax charges carry a 17-year prison sentence, while gun charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison — although federal sentencing guidelines were expected to carry far less time, and it's possible he could avoid prison time altogether.
The amnesty covers not only those crimes, but also any other “crimes against the United States that you committed or may have committed or participated in during the period from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024.”
The son of the American president Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, says that although his family helped him find opportunities, he denies any inappropriate behavior in doing foreign work in Ukraine and China.
Biden is not the first president to use his pardon power to benefit those close to him.
In his final weeks in office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, his son-in-law's father, Jared Kushner, and several associates convicted in Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Trump this week announced plans to nominate the elder Kushner to be the US ambassador to France in his next administration.
Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he will never take the relief he's been given for granted and vowed to rebuild his life “to help those who are still sick and suffering.”
“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the most difficult days of my addiction – mistakes that were used to publicly humiliate and embarrass me and my family through political games,” the younger Biden said.
A spokesman for special counsel David Weiss, who brought the charges, did not return messages seeking comment Sunday night.
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