WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Sunday evening, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence on federal gun and tax convictions and walking back his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency in benefit of his family. members.
The Democratic president previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence after his convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California. The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden receives his punishment following his gun case conviction and guilty plea to tax charges, and less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump returns home White.
It ends a long legal saga for the younger Biden, who publicly revealed he was under federal investigation in December 2020 – a month after his father’s 2020 victory – and casts a pall over the he legacy of the elder Biden. Biden, who repeatedly promised Americans that he would restore standards and respect for the rule of law after Trump’s first term, ultimately used his position to help his son, breaking his public promise to Americans to do no such thing. .
In June, Biden flatly ruled out a pardon or sentence commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son was on trial in the Delaware gun case: “I respect the jury’s decision.” I will and I will not forgive him.
As recently as November 8, days after Trump’s victory, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger Biden, saying: “We have been asked this question several times. Our answer is valid, which is to say no.
The elder Biden publicly supported his only living son as Hunter descended into serious drug addiction and upended his family life, before withdrawing in recent years. His political rivals have long used Hunter Biden’s countless mistakes as a political cudgel against his father: At a hearing, lawmakers displayed half-naked photos of the president’s drug-addicted son in a seedy hotel.
And House Republicans sought to use the younger Biden’s years of questionable overseas business activities in a since-abandoned attempt to impeach his father, who has long denied any involvement in or benefiting from his son’s dealings. in any way.
In a statement released Sunday evening, Biden said: “I believe in the justice system, but as I have fought against it, I also believe that crude politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice. »
“The accusations in his cases came only after several of my political opponents in Congress incited them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden added. “No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases can come to any conclusion other than this: Hunter was chosen solely because he is my son.”
“I hope the American people understand why a father and a president would make this decision,” Biden added, saying he made the decision over the weekend. The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts, with Hunter and his family, and was scheduled to leave later Sunday for what could be his final foreign trip as president before leaving office on the 20th. January 2025.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June in Delaware federal court of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018 when, prosecutors say, he lied on a federal form by saying he was not illegally using drugs nor was he addicted to drugs.
He was scheduled to go to trial in September in the California case, accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges, in a surprise move hours after jury selection began.
David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware who negotiated the plea deal, was later named special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to have more autonomy in prosecuting the president’s son.
Hunter Biden said he was pleading guilty in the case to spare his family further pain and embarrassment after the gun trial aired salacious details about his struggles with a crack addiction.
The tax charges carry up to 17 years in prison and the gun charges carry up to 25 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines are supposed to allow for much less time and it It is possible that he will avoid prison altogether.
Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced this month in the two federal cases, which the special prosecutor brought after a plea deal with prosecutors that likely would have spared him prison time collapsed under scrutiny. a judge. Under the original agreement, Hunter was supposed to plead guilty to tax crimes and would have avoided prosecution in the gun case as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years.
But the plea hearing quickly fizzled out last year when the judge raised concerns about unusual aspects of the deal. He was later charged in both cases.
The extended pardon covers not only these offenses, but also all other “offenses against the United States that he committed, may have committed, or participated in during the period from January 1, 2014 to December 1 2024.”
Hunter Biden’s legal team released a 52-page white paper over the weekend titled “The Political Prosecutions Against Hunter Biden,” describing the president’s son as a “surrogate for attacking and harming his father, both as as a candidate in 2020 and later as president.” Hunter Biden’s lawyers have long argued that prosecutors bowed to political pressure to charge the president’s son, amid sharp criticism from Trump and other Republicans of what they called the “sweetheart” plea deal.
Rep. James Comer, one of the Republican chairmen leading congressional investigations into Biden’s family, blasted the president’s decision to pardon his son, saying the evidence against Hunter was “merely the tip of the iceberg.
“It is unfortunate that, rather than revealing their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability,” Comer said on X, the site formerly known under the name Twitter.
Biden is not the first president to deploy his pardon powers to benefit those close to him.
In his final weeks in office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as several allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump announced this week that he plans to nominate the elder Kushner to serve as U.S. envoy to France in his next administration.
Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he would never take the aid given to him for granted and pledged to dedicate the life he has rebuilt “to helping those who are still sick and who suffer.”
“I admitted and took responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that were exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” said the younger Biden.
Hunter Biden’s legal team filed a brief Sunday evening in Los Angeles and Delaware, asking judges overseeing his gun and tax cases to immediately dismiss them, citing clemency.
A spokesperson for Weiss did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday evening.
Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Nantucket, Massachusetts contributed to this report.
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