Less than six months ago, Joe Biden was adamant that he had no intention of using his presidential powers to pardon his son Hunter Biden.
But on Sunday night, just weeks before leaving the White House for Donald Trump, the president reverse flowgranting a sweeping pardon to his son in a stunning twist that quickly sparked a widespread backlash.
His decision, made on the eve of his trip to Africa and after spending Thanksgiving with him familyhe immediately drew the ire of Republicans, who accused the president of being hypocritical in his defense 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 before his country,” Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, wrote on X. “This is a bad precedent that could be misused by later presidents and which will unfortunately tarnish his reputation.”
Hunter Biden, who is 54, was convicted this year of federal gun-buying charges and pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in September.
The pardon granted by his father will cover those crimes and any potential crimes committed in 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, saying in a statement that Hunter was “selectively and unfairly prosecuted” simply because he is his son. “In trying to break Hunter, they tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe they’re going to stop there. Enough is enough,” Biden said.
It is not atypical for US presidents to issue controversial pardons. Before he leaves the White House in 2021, Trump has offered pardons 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 father-in-law Jared Kushner.
Two decades earlier, Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, a Democratic donor and fugitive facing tax evasion charges, before leaving office. Clinton also pardoned his half-brother Roger for drug possession and trafficking.
But Hunter Biden’s pardon comes at a particularly sensitive time for the US justice system, after Trump accused the current administration of politically motivated federal prosecutions against him. Democrats now fear that Trump will try to weaponize the justice system against them.
Over the weekend, Trump nominated Kash Patel, a loyalist who has vowed to purge the US government’s civil service of employees working against the administration’s goals, as FBI director to replace Chris Wray, adding to those concerns.
Trump released a brief statement on Truth Social in response to Hunter Biden’s pardon, suggesting that people convicted of attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 should receive the same treatment.
“Does Joe’s pardon for Hunter include the J-6 hostages, who have been locked up for years?” Trump announced. “What abuse and failure to achieve justice!” he added.
But many Republicans expressed even greater anger at Biden’s decision.
“After four years of political rebuke for trying to undermine the rule of law, President Biden has shown just how hollow the Democrats’ rhetoric really is — overruling federal convictions for six felonies and six misdemeanors to protect his son’s crimes and breaking his promise to the American people,” Jason Smith , Republican of Missouri and chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement.
“Tonight’s forgiveness 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, former US attorney general under Barack Obama, said it was “justifiable” on the basis that no US attorney would have brought charges against Hunter Biden given the underlying facts.
“Ask yourself a much more important question. Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s leading investigative law enforcement organization? Obvious answer: hell no,” Holder wrote on X.
Nonetheless, the pardon is the latest stain on Biden’s legacy following Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the US election. Many Democrats blame Biden for not stepping down earlier.
It is known that the president is extremely close to his son, who 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 troubles cast a growing shadow over Joe Biden’s political goals, the president kept his son by his side.
“He never left me, never shunned me, never judged me, no matter how bad things got,” Hunter Biden said of his father in his memoir, Nice stuff.
But even for some Democrats, Joe Biden’s act of paternal love may have gone too far — putting the party on the defensive after the election loss.
“I respect President Biden, but I think he got this wrong,” Greg Stanton, Democrat of Arizona, wrote on X. “This was not a politically motivated prosecution. Hunter committed crimes and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”
