President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, on Sunday, a stunning reversal after long pledging not to intervene in a series of embarrassing prosecutions.
“From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” the president said in a statement, adding, “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 — and that is wrong.”
The pardon applies to any offenses Hunter Biden “has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”
Hunter Biden was found guilty in June of illegally owning a gun in 2018 after the Justice Department filed rarely prosecuted charges against him. In September, he also pleaded guilty to not paying his taxes on time to avoid another public trial.
He was set to be sentenced later this month. While the gun charges come with a maximum sentence of 25 years and the tax charges a sentence of up to 17 years, many experts say he was likely to serve no more than 36 months and possibly less, or even just probation.
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The younger Biden said Sunday he would not take the pardon for granted, while adding he believed his past mistakes had been exploited by Republicans for political points.
“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,” the president’s son said in a statement. “In the throes of addiction, I squandered many opportunities and advantages. In recovery we can be given the opportunity to make amends where possible and rebuild our lives if we never take for granted the mercy that we have been afforded.
“I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
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The prosecutions had been an embarrassing saga for the Biden family, often overshadowing the president’s time in office. The White House regularly accused Republicans of hammering Hunter Biden in retribution for the efforts to indict President-elect Donald Trump for his behavior while in office.
The charges against Hunter Biden were long seen as unusual in that they likely wouldn’t have been filed against first-time offenders, according to many legal experts.
Joe Biden had long promised that he would not pardon his son, and the White House said just last month that he was not planning to do so. But the president said Sunday he believed his son had been subject to an “effort to break” him and that “raw politics” had infected the justice system.
“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” Biden said in the statement. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
“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,” he added. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
