Joe Biden pardons son Hunter for gun, tax convictions in big U-turn

US President Joe Biden on Sunday pardoned his son Hunter, sparing him a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions and taking a U-turn on his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency for the benefit of his family members.

“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” he said in a statement released by the White House.

Biden earlier stated that he would neither pardon his son nor commute his sentence following convictions in two cases in Delaware and California. This decision comes just weeks before Hunter Biden was scheduled to face sentencing for his trial conviction in the gun case and his guilty plea on tax charges. The pardon was also granted less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is set to assume office.

“Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently,” the US President said.

Hunter is a recovering drug addict who became a target of Republicans, including Trump.

“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,” Biden said.

The US President further said that “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”.

Biden said that he made the decision over the weekend, during the Thanksgiving holiday, which he spent in Nantucket, Massachusetts, with his wife, Jill Biden, their family, and Hunter, before returning to Washington on Saturday night.

“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” Biden said.

“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision”.

In June, Hunter Biden was convicted in a Delaware federal court on three felony charges for purchasing a firearm in 2018 after allegedly lying on a federal form by claiming he was neither illegally using nor addicted to drugs.

He was scheduled to face trial in September in California for failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes but made a surprise decision to plead guilty to both misdemeanor and felony charges just hours before jury selection was set to begin.