Biden’s decision to pardon son divides Democrats
Joe Biden’s decision has split Democrats on Capitol Hill (we reported on some Republican reaction in our previous post).
Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, criticized Biden’s decision.
“While as a father I certainly understand President Joe Biden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” Polis said on X, as reported by NBC News, which was the first to break the news of the presidential pardon.
“This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”
Arizona congressman Greg Stanton, also a Democrat said he thought Biden “got this one wrong.”
“This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution,” Stanton said, also on X. “Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”
However, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, now an independent, wrote on X, “Joe Biden pardoning Hunter looks bad but most fathers would do the same thing under the circumstances.”
Key events
In the hours since Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, signs have emerged that some Democrats are not pleased with the decision.
Among the first lawmakers to speak out against it was congressman Greg Stanton, who represents a swing district in Arizona. He said:
I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong. This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.
We’ll let you know what other Democrats have to say about Biden’s pardon as the day goes on.
Previous family US presidential pardons
Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter following his federal gun and tax cases may have sent shockwaves through Washington but it isn’t the first time a president has used his power to help his family.
As my colleague David Smith notes, Donald Trump pardoned the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner for tax evasion and retaliating against a cooperating witness.
Bill Clinton as president also pardoned his half-brother Roger for cocaine charges in 2021, after he served his sentence ten years earlier.
Clinton also pardoned his former business partner Susan McDougal, who had been sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the Whitewater real estate deal.
You can read David’s full analysis below
With Donald Trump set to retake power in early 2025, its a reminder of how the legal travails faced by the president-elect interwove with those by Hunter Biden.
Before he was prosecuted, Hunter Biden’s legal team requested the federal gun and tax cases against him be thrown out after Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon dismissed a classified documents case in Florida.
Both Biden and Trump were prosecuted by special counsels appointed by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.
In dismissing the Trump case, Cannon ruled that the appointment of the special counsel who prosecuted Trump, Jack Smith, violated the constitution because he was appointed directly to the position by Garland instead of being nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Biden’s lawyers said on Thursday that that’s exactly what happened in his case, as Weiss in his role as special counsel filed cases against Biden in California and Delaware and separately brought charges against a former FBI informant charged with lying about the Bidens.
However, the move proved ultimately unsuccessful, with those two cases going ahead in June and September.
What is a presidential pardon?
The US constitution says that a president has the power to grant clemency, which includes both pardons and commutations.
A pardon forgives federal criminal offenses; a commutation reduces penalties but isn’t as sweeping.
The power has its roots in English law – the king could grant mercy to anyone – and it made it over the ocean to the American colonies and stuck around.
The US supreme court has found the presidential pardon authority to be very broad.
Donald Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his four years in office and Barack Obama granted clemency 1,927 times in his eight years. Presidents have forgiven drug offences, as mentioned in our post at 11.59 GMT, fraud convictions and Vietnam-era draft dodgers, among many other things.
But a president can only grant pardons for federal offences, not state ones. Impeachment convictions also aren’t pardonable.
*The Associated Press
Who else has Joe Biden’s pardoned since he was elected president?
Coming just weeks before he leaves office, Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter has already attracted controversy and driven debate in Washington.
But it isn’t first time he has exercised his power to benefit those convicted of criminal offences.
He previously pardoned thousands of people given criminal records for marijuana use and possession on federal lands and also granted clemency to 11 people serving what the White House called “disproportionately long” sentences for nonviolent drug offences.
No one was freed from prison under last year’s action, but the pardons were meant to help thousands overcome obstacles to renting a home or finding a job.
Biden’s decision to pardon son divides Democrats
Joe Biden’s decision has split Democrats on Capitol Hill (we reported on some Republican reaction in our previous post).
Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, criticized Biden’s decision.
“While as a father I certainly understand President Joe Biden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” Polis said on X, as reported by NBC News, which was the first to break the news of the presidential pardon.
“This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”
Arizona congressman Greg Stanton, also a Democrat said he thought Biden “got this one wrong.”
“This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution,” Stanton said, also on X. “Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”
However, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, now an independent, wrote on X, “Joe Biden pardoning Hunter looks bad but most fathers would do the same thing under the circumstances.”
Hunter Biden pardon: What we know so far
If you’re just waking up, here is a round-up of developments since US president Joe Biden announcing he was pardoning his son following his convictions for federal gun and tax offences.
Joe Biden’s previous statements on pardoning Hunter
The US president has come under criticism for a perceived reversal over his stance on pardoning his son.
As recently as 8 November, days after Trump’s victory, White House press 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, which is no.”
“I said I’d abide by the jury decision, and I will do that. And I will not pardon him,” Biden also told reporters at the G7 summit in June
When asked if he planned to commute Hunter Biden’s sentence, the president mouthed “no”, according to the BBC.
President-elect Donald Trump – as we reported earlier – responded angrily to Joe Biden’s pardon.
But he himself pardoned several allies and friends in own final days in office among the 70 people granted clemency in 2021.
As this list details, they included former aide Steve Bannon, rapper Lil Wayne, and his daughter’s father-in-law Charles Kushner, whom he has now nominated as ambassador for France.
The use of presidential pardons have long been a feature of US politics, as my colleague Luke Harding previously reported, below.
Here’s the full text of Biden’s pardon announcement:
To All to Whom These Presents Shall Come, Greeting:
Be It Known, That This Day, I, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., President of the United States, Pursuant to My Powers Under Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, of the Constitution, Have Granted Unto
ROBERT HUNTER BIDEN
A Full and Unconditional Pardon
For those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted (including any that have resulted in convictions) by Special Counsel David C. Weiss in Docket No. 1:23-cr-00061-MN in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware and Docket No. 2:23-CR-00599-MCS-1 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF I have hereunto signed my name and caused the Pardon to be recorded with the Department of Justice.
Done at the City of Washington this 1st day of December in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-four and of the Independence of the United States the Two Hundred and Forty-ninth.
What happened during Hunter Biden’s federal gun case?
Two months before Hunter arrived in court for his federal tax proceedings, he appeared in court with his mother Jill Biden and wife Melissa Cohen Biden, in Wilmington, Delaware.
After three hours of deliberation and a week long trial, jurors found him guilty on all three felony counts he faced relating to buying a handgun while being a user of crack cocaine.
Biden was accused of making two false statements when filling out a form to buy a Colt revolver in October 2018: first by stating untruthfully that he was not addicted to or using drugs, and then by declaring the statement to be true.
A third charge alleged that he then illegally owned the gun for 11 days, before his sister-in-law and then lover, Hallie Biden, threw it in a trash bin in a panic.
The prosecution called other members of the Biden family, including his former wife, Kathleen Buhle, to whom he was married for 24 years, and Hallie Biden, the widow of his brother Beau, as it tried to show that Hunter’s drug use had continued during 2018 and 2019.
The testimony painted a portrait of Hunter Biden falling deeper into addiction as he struggled to cope with the death of Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015.
After the breakup of his marriage, he formed a romantic relationship with Hallie Biden, who admitted to having smoked crack with him.
Full story below
What tax offenses did Hunter Biden plead guilty to?
As we reported earlier, Hunter Biden was due to be sentenced for his conviction on federal gun charges on 12 December, with his sentencing on the tax case due on 16 December.
The 54-year-old pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges on 5 September on what was a day fraught with confrontation with prosecutors.
The charges carried a possible 17 year prison sentence.
Biden was accused of failing to pay his taxes on time from 2016 to 2019, as well as facing two felony counts of filing a false return and an additional felony count of tax evasion.
He initially pleaded not guilty to the charges and his attorneys had indicated they would argue he did not act “willfully”, or with the intention to break the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
Read the full details below
Joe Biden, in his statement earlier, took aim at his political opponents for selectively targeting Hunter Biden for prosecution over gun purchase offenses.
Those same opponents have now responded by accusing the president of lying about his family’s activity during his political career.
“Joe Biden has lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities,” said Representative James Comer, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability in a post on X.
“Not only has he falsely claimed that he never met with his son’s foreign business associates and that his son did nothing wrong, but he also lied when he said he would not pardon Hunter Biden.
“The charges Hunter faced were just the tip of the iceberg in the blatant corruption that President Biden and the Biden Crime Family have lied about to the American people.”
US-president elect Donald Trump responds to pardon
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to pardon those convicted after storming the US Capitol in Washington on January 2021 and took the opportunity to raise the issue.
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?
“Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social social media platform.
David Smith
A loving act of mercy by a father who has already known much sorrow? Or a hypocritical political manoeuvre reminiscent of his great foe? Maybe both can be true.
Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he had pardoned his son Hunter, who is facing sentencing in two criminal cases, is likely to have been the product of a Shakespearean struggle between head and heart.
On the one hand, Biden is one of the last great institutionalists in Washington. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making,” he said in an unusually direct and personal statement on Sunday. To undermine the separation of powers goes against every fibre of his political being.
On the other hand, Biden is nothing without family. His speeches are peppered with references to his parents. As a senator, he once took a train from Washington to Wilmington, Delaware, so he could blow out the candles on a birthday cake for his eight-year-old daughter, Ashley, at the station, then cross the platform and take the next train back to work.
Biden was profoundly shaped by the death of his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, and 13-month-old daughter Naomi in a car accident and, much later, the death of his son Beau from brain cancer. In that context, Hunter’s status as the first child of a sitting president to face criminal charges will have pained his father in what Ernest Hemingway called “the broken places”.
Read my full analysis below
Joe Biden’s statement on decision to pardon Hunter – in full
Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.
The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.
No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.
For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.
Hunter Biden: ‘I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes’
Hunter Biden issued a statement following his father’s announcement:
“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 sport,” Hunter Biden said in a statement on Sunday, adding he had remained sober for more than five years.
“In the throes of addiction, I squandered many opportunities and advantages … I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US politics.
On Sunday night, before boarding a plane to Angola, US president Joe Biden issued a pardon to his son Hunter – something he had repeatedly said he would not do.
Biden said he hoped the American people would understand his decision to issue the pardons over convictions on federal gun and tax charges.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” he said.
Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced for his conviction on federal gun charges on 12 December.
He was scheduled to be sentenced in the tax case four days later. Joe Biden is just weeks away from leaving office.