Washington (AP) Hunter, his son, was scheduled to be sentenced this month on offenses related to guns and taxes, and President Joe Biden has long vowed that he would not pardon him. Nevertheless, the president did it on Sunday.
In addition to Hunter Biden’s convictions in two cases in Delaware and California, the broad pardon also includes any further acts against the United States that he may have committed or participated in between January 1, 2014, until December 1, 2024.
Biden is by no means the first president to use his pardoning authority to help people who are close to him. However, for a guy who vowed to restore standards and respect for the rule of law, it was nonetheless a shocking turnaround.
In any case, what is a pardon?
A president may offer clemency, which includes pardons and commutations, according to the U.S. Constitution. A commutation lessens penalties but isn’t as comprehensive as a pardon, which pardons federal criminal acts. The authority stems from English law, which allowed the king to show mercy to everyone. It crossed the seas to the American colonies and remained there. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the president’s pardon power is extremely expansive. Additionally, presidents frequently exercise their authority: Barack Obama awarded clemency 1,927 times in his eight years in office, whereas Donald Trump granted clemency 237 times in his four years. Presidents have pardoned people for a variety of crimes, including drug offenses, fraud convictions, and evading the draft during the Vietnam War.
A president, however, can only pardon federal offenses—not state ones. Convictions for impeachment are also not pardonable.
What offenses was Hunter Biden charged with committing?
After he stated he wasn’t a drug user and bought a pistol in 2018, Hunter Biden was found guilty in June of lying on a federal form. A few months later, he entered a guilty plea to accusations that he had conspired to evade paying taxes totaling at least $1.4 million. Prosecutors alleged he lived lavishly while flouting the tax law, spending his cash on things like strippers and luxury hotels in short, everything but his taxes.
Both charges were related to a time in Hunter Biden’s life when he battled alcohol and drug addiction before getting clean in 2019.
The president’s son stated that he consented to enter a guilty plea to the tax charges in order to spare his family from another humiliating criminal trial after the gun trial revealed obscene and disparaging details about Hunter Biden’s life.
Details of Hunter Biden’s international business transactions, which Republicans have latched upon in an effort to portray the Biden family as crooked, were also anticipated to be revealed during the tax trial.
Judges chosen to the bench by Trump in California and Delaware were scheduled to sentence Hunter Biden in the two instances this month.
Whether prosecutors intended to pursue prison time was not disclosed by the office of special counsel David Weiss. The younger Biden may have avoided prison time entirely if federal sentencing standards had been followed, but the tax charges carried a maximum penalty of 17 years in prison and the weapons charges included a maximum penalty of 25 years.
Biden said he wouldn’t pardon his son, didn’t he?
Indeed. Since 2020, Hunter Biden has been the subject of a federal investigation. As long as he stayed out of jail for two years, he would have avoided prosecution in the gun case after striking a deal with federal prosecutors and entering a guilty plea to misdemeanor tax crimes last year.
However, when the judge voiced concerns about peculiar features of the agreement, the plea hearing swiftly came to an end. After being charged in the two incidents, he has stated that he was singled out due to his status as the president’s son.
Earlier last summer, the president informed reporters that he would not pardon his son.
I’m incredibly proud of Hunter, my son. He is no longer addicted. He claimed to be among the most intelligent and kind individuals he knew. I follow the jury’s verdict. I won’t forgive him, but I will do that.
As recently as Nov. 8, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that Biden would not grant his son a pardon.
Why did Biden not fulfill his pledge?
Biden claimed in his statement on Sunday that his son had been unfairly and selectively prosecuted. Biden has been as worried about his political rivals as Hunter Biden was.
The president is also no longer seeking reelection. Prior to his withdrawal from the presidential contest in June, he announced his no-pardon promise.
According to the president’s remarks, it was evident that his son received different treatment than other defendants in comparable circumstances. He claimed that Biden’s political rivals claimed responsibility for the collapse of the plea agreement.
Given the facts of Hunter’s case, no sane person could conclude otherwise than that Hunter was singled out only because he is my son, which is incorrect. Despite relentless attacks and selective prosecution, there has been an attempt to help Hunter, who has been sober for five and a half years. They have attempted to break me in an attempt to break Hunter, and there is no reason to think that this will end. Enough is enough.
Have previous presidents granted pardons to their cronies or family members?
Indeed. Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, during his last weeks in office. Additionally, he pardoned some allies who had been found guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. The older Kushner will be the U.S. envoy to France in Trump’s next government, the president said over the weekend.
In 2001, President Bill Clinton granted his half-brother Roger Clinton a pardon after he served time in jail for drug-related offenses. Clinton also granted a pardon to Susan McDougal, his former business partner who had been given a two-year prison sentence for her involvement in the Whitewater real estate transaction.
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