Outgoing US President Joe Biden announced a pardon for his son Hunter Biden, a decision that reversed his promise not to issue a pardon. Biden argued that he did so because of what he called a politically motivated process.
US President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he had pardoned his son Hunter, who was facing sentencing this month in two federal cases.
Biden had previously promised not to take such actionbut in a statement Sunday said it made the decision in response to what it called selective and unfair processing.
“The charges in their cases arose only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said in a statement.
Hunter Biden was convicted of three felonies in June for a 2018 gun purchase. Prosecutors said he falsely claimed on a federal form that he did not illegally use drugs or be addicted to them.
He also pleaded guilty in a case in which he was accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes.
The president's action on Sunday pardoned Hunter Biden in both cases, as well as any crimes he “committed or may have committed or participated in” between January 1, 2014 and January 1, 2024.
“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 purposes,” Hunter Biden said in a statement.
President Biden said in his statement that he hopes “Americans understand why a father and a president would make this decision.”
“Throughout my entire career I have followed one simple principle: simply tell the truth to the American people. They will be fair. This is the truth: I believe in the justice system, but while I have struggled with this, I also believe that raw politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice, and once I made this decision this weekend, I did not It made sense to delay it further,” Biden said.
President-elect Donald Trump criticized the move, calling it an “abuse and miscarriage of justice.”
Trump, in the closing stages of his first term, pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump's other pardons included his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and campaign aide George Papadopoulos.
(Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters)