Less than six months ago Joe Biden was categorical in saying he had no intention to use his presidential powers to pardon his son Hunter Biden.
But on Sunday night, just weeks before leaving the White House to Donald Trump, the president reversed course, granting sweeping clemency to his son in a stunning U-turn that rapidly triggered a broad backlash.
His decision, made on the eve of a trip to Africa and after spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his family, triggered immediate outrage from Republicans, who accused the president of being hypocritical in his defence of the rule of law. Even some Democrats were unhappy.
“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,” Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, wrote on X. “This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”
Hunter Biden, who is 54, was convicted this year on federal charges related to gun purchases and pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in September.
The pardon issued by his father will cover those crimes but also any potential crimes committed over the past decade, shielding him from any future prosecution by the justice department under Trump, who has vowed to seek retribution against his political enemies.
The 82-year-old president defended his decision by saying in a statement that Hunter had been “selectively and unfairly prosecuted”, purely for being his son. “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,” Biden said.
It is not atypical for US presidents to issue controversial pardons. Before departing the White House in 2021, Trump offered clemency to his former top aides Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, as well as Charles Kushner, the real estate investor he just nominated to be US ambassador to France, and who is the father of son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Two decades earlier Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, a Democratic donor and fugitive who was facing tax evasion charges, before leaving office. Clinton also pardoned his half-brother Roger for drug possession and trafficking.
But the pardon of Hunter Biden comes at a particularly sensitive time for the US justice system, after Trump accused the sitting administration of mounting federal prosecutions against him for political reasons. Democrats now fear that Trump will try to weaponise the justice system against them.
At the weekend, Trump appointed Kash Patel, a loyalist who has vowed to purge the US government’s civil service of employees working against the administration’s goals, to be director of the FBI to replace Chris Wray, further amplifying those worries.
Trump issued a short statement on Truth Social in response to Hunter Biden’s pardon, to suggest that people who were convicted of storming the US Capitol on January 6 2021, should receive the same treatment.
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?,” Trump posted. “ Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” he added.
But many Republicans expressed even greater outrage at Biden’s decision.
“After four years of political scolding about attempts to undermine the rule of law, President Biden has shown just how empty Democrats’ rhetoric truly is — over-ruling federal convictions of six felonies and six misdemeanors to protect his son’s crimes and breaking his promise to the American people,” Jason Smith, the Missouri Republican and chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means committee, said in a statement.
“Tonight’s pardon is wrong. It proves to the American people that there is a two-tier system of justice,” John Barrasso, a Republican senator from Wyoming, wrote on X.
Some Democrats defended Biden’s pardon for his son. Eric Holder, the former US attorney-general under Barack Obama, said it was “warranted” on the basis that no US attorney would have issued charges against Hunter Biden given the underlying facts.
“Ask yourself a vastly more important question. Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s pre-eminent law enforcement investigative organization? Obvious answer: hell no,” Holder wrote on X.
Nonetheless, the pardon is the latest blemish on Biden’s legacy following Trump’s win against vice-president Kamala Harris in the US election. Many Democrats blame Biden for failing to step aside sooner.
The president is known to be extremely close to his son, who has suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction and lost his mother, the president’s first wife. in a car accident when he was a child. Even as Hunter Biden’s legal problems cast a growing shadow over Joe Biden’s political goals, the president kept his son by his side.
“He never abandoned me, never shunned me, never judged me, no matter how bad things got,” Hunter Biden said of his father in his memoir, Beautiful Things.
But even to some Democrats, Joe Biden’s act of fatherly love may have gone too far — and put the party further on the defensive after its election loss.
“I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong,” Greg Stanton, a House Democrat from Arizona, wrote on X. “This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”