President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, sparing the younger Biden from possible prison time on federal gun and tax convictions and reversing his past promises not to use the president’s extraordinary powers to benefit his family members.
The Democratic president previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence after he was convicted in two cases in Delaware and California.
The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his sentence following his gun trial and guilty plea to tax charges, and less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is due to return to the White House.
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It ended a long-running legal saga for the president’s son, who publicly disclosed he was under federal investigation in December 2020 — a month after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
In June, as his son Hunter faced trial in a Delaware gun case, Biden ruled out a pardon or clemency for his son in an interview with ABC News.
As recently as Nov. 8, White House Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger Biden, saying, “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, and that is no.”
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In a statement released Sunday night, Biden said, “Today I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” saying his son’s prosecution was politically motivated and represented a “miscarriage of justice.”
“The charges in his cases came only after several of my political opponents in Congress encouraged them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said.
“No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases can come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was singled out simply because he is my son.”
“I hope the American people will understand why a father and a president would make this decision,” Biden added, claiming he made the decision this weekend.
The president spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts with Hunter and his family.
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He was convicted in June in federal court in Delaware of three felonies for buying the gun in 2018 when, prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form claiming he was not an illegal drug user or addict.
He was due to stand trial in September in a case in California that accuses him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes.
But he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanors and felonies in a surprise move hours after jury selection was set to begin.
Hunter Biden said he is pleading guilty in the case to spare his family more pain and embarrassment after salacious details about his struggle with crack cocaine addiction were released at a gun trial.
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The tax charges carry up to 17 years behind bars and the gun charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines were expected to call for far less time and it was possible that he would avoid prison altogether.
Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he would never take the relief he was given for granted and vowed to dedicate his rebuilt life to “helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that were used to publicly humiliate and embarrass me and my family for political sport,” the younger Biden said.
A spokesman for Special Prosecutor David Weiss, who prosecuted the cases, did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday night.