The action was taken just weeks before Hunter Biden was scheduled to be punished for his guilty plea to tax crimes and trial conviction in the gun case.On Sunday night, outgoing US President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, avoiding a potential jail sentence for federal felony gun and tax offenses, reversing his earlier pledges to refrain from using the exceptional powers of the presidency for the benefit of his family.
Following his convictions in the two instances in Delaware and California, Biden had previously stated that he would neither commute his sentence nor pardon his son.
The action was taken less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to arrive to the White House, and weeks before Hunter Biden was scheduled to be punished for his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax crimes.
This marks the end of the protracted legal battle for President Joe Biden's son. A month after his father's victory in the 2020 presidential election, Hunter Biden openly declared in December 2020 that he was the subject of a federal investigation.
Biden retracts his pledge
Biden categorically rejected the idea of his son receiving a pardon or commutation in June. In Delaware, where Hunter was on trial for a gun-related charge, Biden told reporters, "I respect the jury's verdict." I will do that and I will not pardon him.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre most recently reaffirmed that Hunter Biden would not receive a pardon or clemency on November 8, a few days after Donald Trump's victory, saying, "We've been asked that question multiple times." Our response, "no," remains unchanged.
However, President Biden claimed that the prosecution was politically motivated and a "miscarriage of justice" in a statement released on Sunday night, saying, "Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter."
Biden went on to say, "No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter's cases can come to any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son." "The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress incited them to attack me and oppose my election," Biden added.
He went on, "I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision," adding that he had decided over the weekend while spending Thanksgiving with Hunter and his family in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
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