Biden Pardons Son Hunter For Gun, Tax Convictions

Last updated on December 2nd, 2024 at 09:51 am

President Joe Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for multiple gun and tax related offenses.

A federal jury in Delaware in June had found Hunter Biden, 54, guilty of three felony counts related to his 2018 purchase of a firearm despite being prohibited as a habitual drug user.

The president’s son also pleaded guilty to three felony and six misdemeanor tax violations in a federal court in California in September. The charges covered about $1.4 million in unpaid taxes between 2016 and 2019.

Hunter Biden faced up to 25 years in prison for the gun charges, and another 17 years in prison for the tax charges. He was due to face sentencing for the gun charges on Dec. 4, and for the tax charges on Dec. 16.

In a June interview with ABC News just days before his son’s conviction on the gun charges, the president said he would accept the jury’s decision and ruled out issuing a pardon. The elder Biden made the comments while he was still seeking re-election for president. He suspended his presidential campaign in July.

Announcing his decision to now issue the pardon, the president didn’t comment on his earlier stance, but insisted he had stayed true to a commitment not to interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making during the prosecution.

The president argued his son’s prosecution was a selective and political enforcement of the law, arguing firearms offenses like the kind his son had committed are almost never prosecuted without other aggravating factors like the gun’s use in a crime. He also argued his son’s case could’ve been handled with a non-criminal resolution.

“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,” the president said. “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.”

The gun and tax charges developed as Republicans in Congress had investigated allegations Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family had leveraged their access to Joe Biden throughout his political career for financial gain, and that Joe Biden was a knowing participant in this arrangement. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee constructed a rough timeline of the alleged influence peddling scheme. The influence peddling allegations formed a basis for an impeachment inquiry against the president.

In June, Republican leaders on the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means recommended criminal charges against Hunter Biden, and the president’s brother, James Biden, in connection with this alleged influence peddling scheme. The same committee leaders filed an August report, concluding the president had committed impeachable offenses. The Republican-led House of Representatives hasn’t taken any additional steps on the impeachment inquiry since returning from their summer recess.