ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Monday that U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter in part to protect him from future persecution by political opponents, but his move drew fierce criticism, with some Democrats saying it undermined public confidence in the rule of law.
Biden, a Democrat whose term ends Jan. 20 when Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office, signed an unconditional pardon for Hunter Biden on Sunday and said he believes his son had been selectively prosecuted and unfairly targeted by his political opponents. president.
Biden has said in the past that he would not pardon his son, including to ABC News in June when he was asked if he would rule out the possibility and responded “yes.”
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His surprising move was criticized by his Republican political opposition but also by Democrats who said it eroded trust in the judicial system, a concept Biden and his party have used to criticize Trump.
Hunter was prosecuted on tax offenses and firearms-related charges after being targeted for years by Republicans in Congress who accused him of doing business under his father’s name but failed to establish any clear connection.
On Monday, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre defended the president’s action and said Biden believed Hunter would face more suffering imposed by his adversaries, whom she did not name. Jean-Pierre was among White House officials who had repeatedly said in the past that Biden would not pardon his son.
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“One of the reasons the president did the pardon is because it didn’t seem like — his political opponents — were going to let him go. It didn’t look like they were going to move forward,” she told reporters on the Air Force One presidential plane during a trip to Angola. “They would continue to persecute your son. That’s what he believed.”
Jean-Pierre emphasized that this was not the first time that a president had pardoned a family member. Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger before leaving office, and Trump pardoned his daughter’s father-in-law, Charles Kushner.
Jean-Pierre said Biden believes in the Justice Department, despite his statement that his son’s case in the court system was “infected” by politics.
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“Two things can be true: the president believes in the justice system and the Department of Justice, and he also believes that his son’s case in the justice system is ‘infected’ by politics,” he said. “And he also believes his son was the target of political discrimination,” she said.
She declined to elaborate on why or how Biden changed his mind, or whether the recent election that put Republicans in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress played a role.
Republicans accused Biden of lying. Democrats were divided, with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis suggesting the president put family above country and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder saying the pardon was justified.
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“Joe Biden has the opportunity to do more than protect his own. He can extend the same compassion he showed for his son to the millions of people imprisoned for non-violent crimes,” Black Lives Matter said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The New York Times reported that Biden was concerned that the pressure of the trials could affect his son’s sobriety and that nothing other than a full pardon had apparently been considered.
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in September to federal tax charges in federal court in Los Angeles and was scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16 by Mark C. Scarsi, a judge appointed by Trump. A jury found him guilty in June of making false statements on a gun background check; he was scheduled to be sentenced on those charges this month as well.
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Biden said Sunday that his son had been selectively prosecuted and treated differently than others with similar situations. “No reasonable person analyzing the facts of Hunter’s cases can come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was chosen solely because he was my son — and that is wrong,” he said.
Late Sunday, Hunter Biden’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.
