President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal gun crimes and tax convictions and reversing his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency to benefit his family.
The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence following the convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California. Sunday night’s move comes weeks before Hunter Biden received his punishment following his conviction in the gun case trial and his guilty plea on tax charges, and less than two months before the president-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. .
It closes a long legal saga for the younger Biden, who publicly revealed that he was under federal investigation in December 2020, a month after his father’s 2020 victory, and casts a shadow on the older Biden’s legacy.
Biden, who time and time again promised Americans that he would restore norms 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 that he would not would do such a thing. .
In a statement released Sunday night, Biden said, “I believe in the justice system, but while I have struggled with this, I also believe that crude politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”
The president’s broad pardon covers not only the tax and weapons crimes against the younger Biden, but also any other “crimes against the United States that he committed or may have committed or in which he participated during the period between 1 January 2014 and December 1, 2014.” , 2024.”
In June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware firearms case: “I respect the jury’s decision. “I will do it and I will not forgive it.”
As recently as Nov. 8, days after Trump’s victory, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or pardon for the younger Biden, saying, “We’ve been asked that question several times.” times. Our answer is valid: no.”
Biden’s father has publicly supported his only living son as Hunter fell into a serious drug addiction and disrupted his family life before returning to normal in recent years. The president’s political rivals have long used Hunter Biden’s countless missteps as a political cudgel against his father: At one hearing, lawmakers showed photos of the president’s drug-addicted son half-naked in a seedy hotel.
House Republicans also sought to use the younger Biden’s years of dubious foreign business ventures in a now-abandoned attempt to impeach his father, who has long denied being involved in his son’s or his business dealings. benefit from them in some way.
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“The charges in their cases arose only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said in his statement. “No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases can come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was singled out solely because he is my son.”
“I hope Americans understand why a father and a president would make this decision,” Biden added, stating that he made the decision this weekend.
The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts, with Hunter and his family, and left for Angola later Sunday in what could be his last foreign trip as president before leaving office on Jan. 20. of 2025.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June in federal court in Delaware on three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018 when, prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form by claiming he was not an illegal drug user or addict.
He was scheduled to stand 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 misdemeanors and felonies in a surprise decision hours after jury selection began.
David Weiss, the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in Delaware who negotiated the plea deal, was later appointed special prosecutor by Attorney General Merrick Garland to have more autonomy over the prosecution of the president’s son.
Hunter Biden said he was pleading guilty in that case to spare his family more pain and shame after the gun trial aired salacious details about his struggle with crack addiction.
The tax charges carry up to 17 years behind bars and the weapons charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines were expected to require much less time and he may have avoided prison time by complete.
Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced this month in the two federal cases, which the special counsel brought after a plea deal with prosecutors that likely would have saved him prison time fell apart under a judge’s scrutiny. Under the original agreement, Hunter was supposed to plead guilty to minor tax offenses and avoid prosecution in the weapons case as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years.
But the plea hearing quickly fell apart last year when the judge raised concerns about unusual aspects of the deal. The younger Biden was later formally charged in both cases.
Hunter Biden’s legal team this weekend released a 52-page white paper titled “The Political Prosecutions of Hunter Biden,” which describes the president’s son as a “substitute for attacking and hurting his father, both as a candidate in 2020.” as later as president.”
The younger Biden’s lawyers have long argued that prosecutors bowed to political pressure to charge the president’s son amid strong criticism from Trump and other Republicans of what they called the “sweetheart” plea deal.
Rep. James Comer, one of the Republican chairs leading congressional investigations into Biden’s family, criticized the president’s pardon and said the evidence against Hunter was “just the tip of the iceberg.”
“It is unfortunate that, instead of coming clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability,” Comer said on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.
Biden is not the first president to use 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 multiple allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump announced over the weekend plans to nominate the elder Kushner as the US envoy to France in his next administration.
Trump, who pledged to dramatically reform and install loyalists throughout the Justice Department after being indicted for his role in trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election, said in a social media post Sunday that Hunter’s pardon Biden was “an abuse and a miscarriage.” of Justice.”
“Does Joe’s pardon for Hunter include the J-6 hostages, who have already been imprisoned for years?” Trump asked, referring to those convicted by his supporters in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he will never take for granted the relief he has been granted and vowed to dedicate the life he has rebuilt “to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction, mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for the sake of political sport,” the younger Biden said.
Hunter Biden’s legal team filed Sunday night in both Los Angeles and Delaware asking judges handling his gun and tax cases to dismiss them immediately, citing the pardon.
A spokesman for Weiss did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday evening.
NBC News was the first to report that Biden was expected to pardon his son on Sunday.
Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Nantucket, Massachusetts, contributed to this report.
