President Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, sparing the younger Biden a prison term for felony gun and tax convictions and reversing promises not to use his powers to benefit his family. The move comes soon before Hunter Biden was to be sentenced after his conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax charges. The Associated Press reports that the pardon caps a long-running legal saga for the president’s son, who disclosed he was under federal investigation a month after his father's 2020 election victory. The president said alleged that the prosecution of his son was politically motivated and a “miscarriage of justice.” He added that the charges came "only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. No reasonable person ... can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son.” The pardon insulates his son from ever facing federal charges over any crimes he possibly could have committed over the past decade. Experts think of only one other person who has received a presidential pardon so sweeping in generations: Richard Nixon, who was given a blanket pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974. “I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” said Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, Politico reports.
A few days ago, Hunter Biden’s attorneys started a strong public defense of the president’s son before federal judges in Delaware and California sentenced him. In a paper titled “The political prosecutions of Hunter Biden,” the lawyers argued that he was prosecuted for crimes that an ordinary citizen would not have been. Hunter Biden would likely face further unfair threats when President-elect Trump takes office, the lawyers say, the Washington Post reports. “With the election now decided, the threat against Hunter is real,” the report asserts. It cites comments President-elect Trump has made about targeting his opponents, along with remarks from congressional Republicans who have investigated Biden family members. “There is no disputing that Trump has said his enemies list includes Hunter,” the report says. “The prospect that Trump will turn his vengeance on the Special Counsel prosecutors if they fail to take a harder line against Hunter no doubt exerts considerable pressure on them not to let up on Hunter.” Both cases against Hunter Biden were brought by special counsel David Weiss. Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell said, “This is a seven-year saga propelled by an unrelenting political desire to use a son to hurt his father.” Hunter Biden was convicted in June by a federal jury in Delaware for lying on a gun-purchase form in 2018 when he checked a box saying he was not using illegal drugs, as well as for illegally owning that weapon for 11 days as a drug user. Sentencings in the cases had been set for December 12 and 16.
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