President Joe Biden issued a pardon to his son Hunter Biden on Sunday, 1 December. While at first glance, a father sparing his lone surviving son prison time may seem like an understandable call, some aspects of the pardon make it yet another considerable scandal to tarnish the outgoing administration.
What makes it worse for the Democrats is that President Biden has categorically denied on multiple occasions that he would ever pardon his son in the past. He also stated in an interview with ABC News in June 2024 that he would respect the verdict of the jury in his son’s criminal case, no matter the outcome. The more sceptical, right-leaning press had pressed the issue for months on, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also joining in the official denial of a potential pardon of the President’s son.
President Biden was similarly embarrassed earlier this year, when despite his repeated forceful commitment to remaining his party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential election, he was eventually pressured into stepping away from the nomination in July.
Hunter Biden was convicted of three felony counts of making false statements on a federal gun purchase form in 2018, denying that he was an active drug user. He was due to be sentenced on December 12. Biden was also found guilty of three felony counts of tax evasion in September 2024, for which was due to be sentenced also this month, 16 December. Needless to say, the two cases put together threatened the sitting President’s son with hefty prison time, but that pardon will now spare him any.
The more cynical observers on the right purport that Hunter Biden was always going to be pardoned by his father after the election, and his cases were just an elaborate ruse to ease accusations of political bias within the US justice system while President Donald Trump was also being prosecuted.
‘President Biden was similarly embarrassed earlier this year when he was pressured into stepping away in July’
Interestingly, now it is President Biden who is insinuating that political prosecution took place within the US Department of Justice, accusing the prosecution in his son’s criminal cases of political corruption.
Another issue that has sparked criticism is the broad scope of Hunter Biden’s pardon.
He was not only granted immunity against his gun and tax evasion charges, but also ‘for those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024,’ as per the pardon’s official text. Between April 2014 and April 2019, Hunter Biden served on the board of directors for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holding, for which he got paid around $84,000 a month despite not having any prior experience in the energy sector or in the Ukrainian corporate world. Many believe that this was likely a quid-pro-quo deal by the Ukrainian government to gain access and favours from the Obama White House at the time. However, due to the presidential pardon, which covers Hunter Biden’s entire tenure at Burisma, that case will never be investigated.
President Biden became the first President in US history to issue a pardon to his own son. This is not the first time that a close family member has received clemency from the outgoing POTUS, however. On his last day in office in January 2001, President Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton Jr who was convicted of cocaine trafficking.
Founding Father John Adams dealt a lot differently with a criminal member of his family, on the other hand. He disowned his alcoholic son Charles, who committed indecent exposure and was involved in financial fraud.
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