President Biden and the White House repeatedly said Hunter would not receive a pardon, saying he would “abide by the jury decision” to convict his son of federal gun charges.
On Sunday evening, the White House announced President Joe Biden signed a presidential pardon for his son, Hunter Biden. Earlier this year, the younger Biden was convicted on a variety of tax fraud charges after pleading guilty in federal court. He was also convicted by a Delaware jury in June on felony counts of illegally purchasing and possessing a firearm while using crack cocaine. Hunter lied on an application form about his drug use when purchasing a handgun in 2018.
In the announcement, the President gave his son a “full and unconditional pardon” for crimes Hunter committed “or may have committed” over the course of a nearly 11-year window, from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024, the day the pardon was issued. The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis pointed out on X that this includes portions of the President’s time as Vice President as well as nearly the entirety of his term as President.
This timeframe also includes the time the President’s son spent on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company for which Hunter later attempted to use his influence and family connections to assist in getting a Burisma project approved by regulators in Italy.
When his son’s convictions were announced, the President and White House staff repeatedly said Hunter Biden would not receive a pardon, including in June after the gun conviction in which President Biden said “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.” Less than a month ago, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Hunter would not be pardoned.
In the President’s statement, he said the pardon was issued because of the “selective prosecution” of Hunter “only because he is [Biden’s] son.” Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced on December 12 for his conviction on federal gun charges.
The President further said he believed “raw politics has infected this process”, calling it a “miscarriage of justice” and asked the American people to “understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.” The pardon of the President’s son comes just hours after reports that Hunter Biden’s legal team was conducting a full-court press to obtain a pardon from their client’s father.
The elder Biden’s decision to pardon his son was met with disapproval from a variety of talking heads. While many right-of-center journalists, pundits, and opinion contributors understandably took issue with the pardon, Chris Cillizza, formerly of CNN called the move a “colossally selfish decision” that shows “Democrats say one thing and do another.”
Colorado Governor, Democrat Jared Polis also criticized the pardon, saying it sets “a bad precedent” of putting “family ahead of the country”, and that “Hunter brought the legal trouble he faced on himself.”
