PRESIDENT Joe Biden of the United States of America has issued a pardon for his son, Hunter Robert Biden, according to a statement from the White House.
Hunter was due for sentencing this month for federal tax and gun convictions.
The decision marks a reversal for the president, who has repeatedly said he would not use his executive authority to pardon his son or commute his sentence.
A senior White House official says Biden decided over this weekend to grant his son a pardon.
The White House statement read thus:
Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. 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. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.
The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unravelled in the courtroom – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.
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. 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. 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.
For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. 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. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.
-President Joe Biden
The pardon means Hunter Biden won’t be sentenced for his crimes, and it eliminates any chance that he’ll be sent to prison, which was a possibility. The judges overseeing his cases will likely cancel the sentencing hearings, which were slated for 12 December in the gun case and 16 December in the tax case.
The broadly crafted pardon explicitly grants clemency for the tax and gun offences from his existing cases, plus any potential federal crimes that Hunter Biden may have committed “from 1 January 2014 through 1 December 2024.” This time frame, importantly, covers his entire tenure on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and much of his other overseas work, including in China. He had faced scrutiny for his controversial foreign business dealings, and Trump has repeatedly said he should be prosecuted for his activities in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers on Sunday night formally notified the judges in his criminal cases about the pardon — and he said in an affidavit that he has accepted the pardon from his father.
In new court filings, Hunter Biden’s lawyers told the judges in both of his cases that the pardon “requires dismissal of the Indictment against him with prejudice and adjournment of all future proceedings in this matter. “
Eighteen-Eleven Media