Unblock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter on gun and tax charges in an extraordinary reversal of his pledge not to use executive powers to benefit his son less than two months before his presidency ends.
In a statement on Sunday night, the US president accused political opponents in Congress of “inciting” the allegations against Hunter to attack him.
“No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s affairs can come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was singled out just because he’s my son — and that’s wrong,” Biden said.
“From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere in the decisions of the Department of Justice, and I kept my word, even as I watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted,” Biden added.
Hunter’s legal troubles have become a political headache for Joe Biden since his 2020 election victory when his son revealed he was under federal investigation.
He was convicted in June of this year on three counts of lying during a federal background check to buy a handgun. The trial featured detailed testimony about his cocaine addiction and his romantic relationship with his brother’s widow.
Hunter Biden also pleaded guilty to tax charges last month in federal court in Los Angeles. He was accused of evading $1.4 million in taxes, including through improper business deductions. He allegedly wasted• cash for goods including cars, drugs and prostitution.
The president issued several statements in support of his son, but he also said he would not pardon him. His cancellation comes ahead of sentencing in both cases, which was scheduled for this month.
On Sunday night, Biden said the legal attacks were part of an “effort to break Hunter,” adding that he made the decision to pardon his son over the weekend.
“My whole career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They will be honest,” Biden wrote.
“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but in fighting this, I also believe that crude politics infected the process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”
Stephen Cheng, Donald Trump’s communications director, suggested that Biden’s move supports Trump’s claims of a politically motivated justice system. “The failed witch hunt against President Trump has proven that the Democrat-controlled Justice Department and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system,” Cheng said.
Republican Congressman James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Biden lied when he claimed he had not pardoned his son, calling the family the “Biden Crime Family.”
In a statement, Hunter Biden said he “recognized and accepted responsibility” for “mistakes in the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that were used to publicly humiliate and embarrass me and my family for political sport.”
The president’s son vowed to “never take the pardon I was given today for granted” and vowed to dedicate his life to “helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
The pardon covers all crimes committed by the president’s son between January 1, 2014 and December 1, 2024.
A survey A June poll by Monmouth University in New Jersey found that just under half of voters and nearly two-thirds of Democrats thought the Justice Department’s decision to indict Hunter Biden on gun charges was politically motivated.
The same poll found that just over half of all Americans, and nearly all Republicans, also believe that President-elect Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial in New York was politically motivated.
