Biden pardons his son Hunter even though he said many times he wouldn’t

U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he had pardoned his son Hunter Biden. This was a change from his previous promise to stay out of the legal process against the younger Biden, who pleaded guilty to tax breaches and was found guilty of gun-related charges.

“I released my son Hunter from jail today.” The president said in a statement, “From the day I took office, I promised I would not get in the way of the Justice Department’s decisions. I kept my word, even as I watched my son be unfairly and selectively prosecuted.”

The White House had said many times that Biden would not commute Hunter’s term or pardon him. Hunter is a recovering drug addict who became a target of Republicans, including Donald Trump, who is now President-elect.

“Taking into account all the facts of Hunter’s case, it is clear that Hunter was singled out only because he is my son,” Biden said in a statement released just before he left for a trip to Africa.

Biden gave Hunter Biden “a full and unconditional” pardon for all crimes committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024. This was written in the court order.

Hunter Biden was going to be sentenced this month for making fake statements and gun crimes. He admitted in September that he had not paid $1.4 million in taxes while spending a lot of money on drugs, sex workers, and nice things. His sentencing in that case was set for December 16.

Hunter Biden said in a statement on Sunday, “I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction—mistakes that have been used to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.” He also said that he had been sober for more than five years.

“While I was addicted, I missed out on many chances and benefits…” I will never take the mercy I was given today for granted, and I will use the new life I have built to help people who are still sick and struggling.

Republicans didn’t like what the president did.

President Joe Biden of the United States in downtown Nantucket
On November 29, 2024, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Beau Jr. were on Nantucket, Massachusetts. Craig Hudson for Reuters Buy licensing rights, opens in a new tab
“Are the J-6 Hostages freed because Joe pardoned Hunter? They have been locked up for years.” What an injustice and abuse of power!” In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump talked about the people who were found guilty of storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, after Trump lied and said he had won the 2020 election.

Representative James Comer, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said, “Joe Biden has lied from the beginning to the end about his family’s illegal activities,”

In 2015, the president’s son Beau died of brain cancer. He said that his opponents had tried to break Hunter by prosecuting some people more than others.

He said that people were almost never charged with a crime for how they filled out a gun form. He also said that people who were addicted to drugs and were late on their taxes but paid them back with interest and penalties, like his son did, usually didn’t have to go to court.

“It’s clear that Hunter got different treatment. “The charges against him only came about after some of my political opponents in Congress pushed them to attack me and stop my election,” Biden said. “They’ve tried to break me as well as Hunter, and there’s no reason to think it will end here.” “Enough is enough.”

Lawyers for Hunter Biden said in August 2023 that prosecutors had broken a plea deal that would have taken care of the tax and gun charges. It was in his Sunday speech that the president said the plea deal “would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”

Biden said that the choice to pardon was made over the weekend. The president, his wife Jill Biden, and Hunter, along with the rest of their family, spent Thanksgiving in Nantucket, Massachusetts. On Saturday night, they returned to Washington, D.C.

“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 Biden.

“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”