Biden pardons his son Hunter despite previous pledges not to do so – Baltimore Sun

By ZEKE MILLER, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and COLLEEN LONG

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter on Sunday night, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence on federal gun and tax convictions and reversing his earlier promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency to benefit his family members.

The Democratic president had previously said he would neither pardon nor commute his son’s sentence following his convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California. The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his sentence following his conviction in the gun case and his guilty plea on tax charges, and less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House.

It caps a long-running legal saga for the younger Biden, who publicly announced in December 2020 – a month after his father’s 2020 victory – that he was under federal investigation, and casts a shadow over the elder Biden’s legacy. Biden, who repeatedly promised Americans that he would restore norms and respect for the rule of law after Trump’s first term, ultimately used his position to help his son, breaking his public promise to Americans that he would do such a thing wouldn’t do.

In June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son stood trial in the Delaware gun case: “I will abide by the jury’s decision. I will do that and I will not forgive him.”

It was only on November 8, days after Trump’s victory, that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger Biden, saying, “We’ve been asked this question several times.” Our answer is no. “

The elder Biden publicly stood by his only living son as Hunter fell into a serious drug addiction, throwing his family life into turmoil before he withdrew from office in recent years. His political rivals have long used Hunter Biden’s countless mistakes as a political cudgel against his father: in a hearing, MPs showed half-naked photos of the drug-addicted president’s son in a run-down hotel.

And House Republicans tried to use the younger Biden’s years of questionable foreign dealings in a now-abandoned attempt to impeach his father, who has long denied being involved in or benefiting in any way from his son’s dealings.

In a statement released Sunday evening, Biden said: “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with it, I also believe that raw politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”

“The prosecution in his cases came only after several of my political opponents in Congress incited them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden added. “No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases could come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was chosen solely because he is my son.”

“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president make this decision,” Biden added, claiming he made the decision this weekend. The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts, with Hunter and his family and was scheduled to leave later Sunday on what could be his final foreign trip as president before leaving office on Jan. 20, 2025.

Hunter Biden was convicted in June in federal court in Delaware of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018, when, according to prosecutors, he lied on a federal form by claiming he had not used drugs illegally or was not addicted to drugs.

He was scheduled to go on trial in September in the California case, in which he was accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he agreed to unexpectedly plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges just hours after jury selection was set to begin.

David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware who negotiated the plea deal, was subsequently appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to have more autonomy in prosecuting the president’s son.

Hunter Biden said he pleaded guilty in the case to spare his family more pain and embarrassment after the gun trial revealed salacious details about his struggles with a crack cocaine addiction.

The tax charges carry a sentence of up to 17 years in prison, and the gun possession charge carries a sentence of up to 25 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines called for far less time and it was possible he would avoid prison time altogether.

Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced this month in the two federal cases brought by the special counsel after a deal with prosecutors that likely would have spared him prison time failed in a judge’s review. Under the original agreement, Hunter was to plead guilty to tax crimes and could have avoided prosecution in the gun case as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years.

But the plea hearing ended quickly last year when the judge raised concerns about unusual aspects of the deal. He was subsequently charged in both cases.

The comprehensive pardon extends not only to these crimes, but also to all other “crimes against the United States which he committed or may have committed or participated in during the period from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024.” “.

Hunter Biden’s legal team released a 52-page white paper this weekend titled “The Political Prosecutions of Hunter Biden,” which described the president’s son as a “proxy for attacks and injuries committed against his father both as a candidate in 2020 and later.” as President”. Hunter Biden’s lawyers have long argued that prosecutors caved to political pressure to charge the president’s son, even as Trump and other Republicans voiced strong criticism of what they called a “sweetheart” plea deal.

Both cases against the younger Biden were rather unusual. Criminal tax cases are generally rare, legal experts said, and weapons offenses are usually brought along with other more serious charges. In Hunter Biden’s case, his lawyers noted that he had the gun for 11 days and never fired it. And the back taxes he owed were paid back before he was scheduled to stand trial.

Rep. James Comer, one of the Republican leaders leading the congressional investigation into Biden’s family, criticized the president’s decision to pardon his son, saying the evidence against Hunter was “just the tip of the iceberg.”

“It is unfortunate that President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to evade responsibility rather than expose their decades of misconduct,” Comer said on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

Biden is hardly the first president to use his pardon powers to benefit those close to him.

In his final weeks in office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as several allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump announced plans over the weekend to name the elder Kushner as U.S. envoy to France in his next administration.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump who has promised to fundamentally overhaul the Justice Department and install loyalists after he was prosecuted for his role in undermining the 2020 presidential election, said in a statement: “This justice system must be fixed.” and Due process must be restored for all Americans, and that is exactly what President Trump will do when he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people.”

Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he would never take the relief given to him for granted and vowed to dedicate the life he has rebuilt “to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”

“I acknowledged and took responsibility for my mistakes in the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that were exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political purposes,” the younger Biden said.

Hunter Biden’s legal team filed lawsuits in both Los Angeles and Delaware on Sunday evening, asking the judges handling his gun and tax cases to immediately dismiss them, citing the pardon.

A spokesman for Weiss did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday evening.

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Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Nantucket, Massachusetts, contributed to this report.

Originally published: December 1, 2024 at 7:37 pm EST