US President: “They wanted to break Hunter and me” – Joe Biden pardons his son

US President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter on Sunday evening (local time), sparing him a possible prison sentence for weapons and tax offenses. Joe Biden is breaking his earlier promise not to use presidential powers to benefit his family members. The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence following the convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California.

The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden was scheduled to receive his sentence following his conviction in the gun rights trial and his guilty plea in the tax case – and less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to return to the White House.

For the son, who publicly announced in December 2020 – a month after his father’s election victory – that an investigation was underway against him, this marks the end of a long legal saga that calls his father’s legacy into question. President Biden, who repeatedly promised Americans that he would restore norms and respect for the rule of law after Trump’s first term, is using his position to help his son, breaking his public promise to Americans.

Back in June, during the election campaign, Biden categorically ruled out pardoning or commuting his son’s sentence. He told reporters as his son stood trial in the Delaware gun case: “I abide by the jury’s decision. I will do that and not pardon him”.

And as recently as November 8, a few days after Trump’s victory, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or pardon for the younger Biden: “We have been asked this question several times. Our answer remains. It says no.”

The elder Biden publicly stood by his only living son as he descended into serious drug addiction. In recent years, the son has managed to make a change for the better. His political rivals have long used Hunter Biden’s countless mistakes as a political cudgel against his father: In a hearing, lawmakers showed half-naked photos of the president’s drug-addicted son in a shabby hotel.

Republicans in the House of Representatives also tried to use the younger Biden’s years of questionable foreign dealings in a now-abandoned attempt to impeach his father. Joe Biden denies having any involvement in his son’s business or benefiting from it in any way.

In a statement released Sunday evening, Joe Biden said: “I believe in the legal system. But as I have wrestled with this issue, I also believe that raw politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”

“It was about breaking Hunter — who has been sober for five and a half years, despite the relentless attacks and selective prosecution,” Joe Biden said. “By trying to break Hunter, they have tried to break me – and there is no reason to believe they will stop at this point. Enough is enough.”

Biden said the charges in both cases came only after several of his political opponents in Congress incited the judiciary to hurt his election prospects. “No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases could come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was singled out simply because he is my son.”

Biden said he made the decision this weekend, when the family Thanksgiving holiday took place: “I hope the American people will understand why a father and a president came to this decision.” The president had the Thanksgiving holiday with Hunter and his family in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and was scheduled to depart Sunday on what could be his final foreign trip as president before he leaves office on Jan. 20, 2025.

Hunter Biden was convicted in June in federal court in Delaware of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018. According to prosecutors, he lied on a federal form by claiming he was not a drug addict.

He was also scheduled to go on trial in September in the California tax case in which he was accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But just hours after jury selection began, he unexpectedly agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and a felony.

Hunter Biden had said he was pleading guilty in the case to spare his family further pain and embarrassment after the gun trial revealed intimate details about his struggle with crack addiction.

The tax offenses are punishable by up to 17 years behind bars, and the weapons offenses can be punished by up to 25 years in prison. However, a much lighter sentence was expected – possibly no prison at all. However, an out-of-court settlement recently failed.

The broad pardon applies not only to these crimes, but also to all other “crimes against the United States which he committed or may have committed or in which he was a party during the period from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024.” “

Hunter Biden’s legal team released a 52-page position paper this weekend titled “The Political Prosecutions of Hunter Biden,” portraying the president’s son as a surrogate who should be targeted to harm his father – as a candidate in 2020 and later as president.” Hunter Biden’s lawyers have long argued that prosecutors bowed to political pressure. Trump and other Republicans, for their part, sharply criticized the supposed leniency toward Hunter Biden, which they derided as a “sweetheart” deal.

Rep. James Comer, one of the Republican leaders leading the congressional investigation into Biden’s family, criticized the president’s decision to pardon his son, saying the evidence against Hunter was “just the tip of the iceberg”: “It is “It is unfortunate that President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid responsibility rather than expose their decades of wrongdoing,” Comer said on X.

There is also criticism from within his own party. Joe Biden put his family before the country and set a bad precedent that could be abused by future presidents, said Democratic Governor of Colorado Jared Polis.

Biden is not the first president to use his pardon powers to benefit those close to him. In the final weeks of his term, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as several allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump this week announced plans to name the elder Kushner as U.S. envoy to France in his next administration.

Hunter Biden said in writing that he would never take the pardon granted to him for granted and pledged to dedicate the life he has rebuilt “to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”

“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that were exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for the sake of politics,” Hunter Biden said.