U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, reversing his promise to stay out of legal proceedings against the younger Biden, who pleaded guilty to tax violations and was convicted on firearms charges.
“Today I signed a pardon for my son Hunter.” “From the day I took office, I promised not to interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept that promise even as I watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted,” the president said in the statement.
The White House had repeatedly stated that Biden would not pardon or commute Hunter’s sentence, a recovering drug addict who has become a target of Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son,” Biden said in a statement released shortly before leaving for Africa.
The grant of clemency stated that Biden had granted Hunter Biden “a full and unconditional” pardon for any offenses committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024.
Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced this month for making false statements and possessing a firearm. In September, he pleaded guilty to federal charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while lavishing money on drugs, prostitutes, and luxury items. The court scheduled his sentence in that case for December 16.
“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 political sport,” Hunter Biden said in a statement on Sunday, adding that he had been sober for more than five years.
“In the grip of addiction, I squandered numerous opportunities and benefits… I will never take the mercy I have received today for granted, and I will devote the life I have rebuilt to assisting those who are still ill and suffering.”
Republicans criticized the president’s decision.
Does Joe’s pardon for Hunter encompass the years-long imprisonment of the J-6 hostages? What an abuse and miscarriage of justice!” In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump referred to those convicted of storming the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, following his false claim to have won the 2020 election.
Representative James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, stated that Joe Biden has consistently lied about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities.
The president, whose son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, claimed that his opponents attempted to break Hunter through selective prosecution.
He stated that people were almost never tried for felony charges based on how they filled out a gun form, and that others who were late paying taxes due to addiction but paid them back with interest and penalties, such as his son, typically received non-criminal resolutions to their cases.
“It’s clear Hunter was treated differently. Only after several of my political opponents in Congress incited them to attack me and oppose my election did they bring charges in his cases,” Biden stated. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve also tried to break me, and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. “Enough is enough.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyers claimed in August 2023 that prosecutors had broken their promise to resolve the tax and firearms charges through a plea deal. The president stated on Sunday that the plea deal “would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”
Biden said he decided to pardon over the weekend. The president, his wife, Jill Biden, and their family, including Hunter, spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts, before returning to Washington on Saturday night.
“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process, and it led to a miscarriage of justice—and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” said Vice President Biden.
“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”