(Bloomberg) -- The ongoing legal drama over Hunter Biden ended abruptly when his father, US President Joe Biden, pardoned him for tax and gun charges despite vowing not to do so.
Biden issued a sweeping order on Dec. 1 that pardoned his son for all federal crimes, charged or uncharged, between 2014 and 2024. The president justified his actions in a statement saying that the Justice Department unfairly prosecuted his son and political opponents targeted both of them.
“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,” Biden said. “Raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”
The president’s protest echoed a main theme of Donald Trump’s campaign as he won back the White House — that partisan prosecutors targeted him. Trump was found guilty on May 30 of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star, and he faced three other criminal prosecutions. US prosecutors have dropped two cases, and his two state prosecutions are in jeopardy.
Still, Biden’s pardon risks tarnishing his legacy and subjecting him to claims of hypocrisy.
What does Biden’s pardon of Hunter Biden mean?
Hunter Biden won’t face any punishment for his two convictions, and he can’t be charged with any other federal crimes arising from any actions over 11 years. That spares Biden from a sentencing this month on the gun charges in Delaware, where two counts carried a prison term as long as 10 years, and another was punishable by as many as five. Hunter Biden also won’t face sentencing on the tax charges in Los Angeles, where he faced as many as 17 years in prison. Judges rarely impose the maximum term.
What crimes did Hunter Biden commit?
A federal jury in Delaware convicted Hunter Biden of three counts of violating federal gun laws for illegally stating on a form that he wasn’t an active drug user when he bought a firearm in October 2018. Prosecutors showcased evidence that he was addicted to crack cocaine at the time. Jurors deliberated three hours before convicting him.
In Los Angeles, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all three felonies and six misdemeanors in an indictment against him. Prosecutors said that from 2016 to 2019 — when Hunter Biden earned more than $7 million as a lawyer, lobbyist and consultant — he willfully failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. Rather than pay taxes, he spent on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing” and other personal items. He also falsely identified personal expenses as business deductions, misled his accountants and signed false tax returns, prosecutors said.
How does a presidential pardon work in the US?
It’s an act of presidential forgiveness rooted in Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution that wipes the slate clean for the recipient, even halting judicial proceedings that are under way. (A commutation differs from a pardon by making a punishment milder without wiping out the underlying conviction.) Alexander Hamilton, explaining the purpose of presidential pardoning power in Federalist Paper No. 74, said that the severity of a criminal code demands “an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt,” without which “justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.”
What are the limits of a president’s pardon power?
Standard procedure is to let the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney vet requests, a process that Trump rarely followed in granting dozens of pardons and commutations. But the president can grant a pardon “to any individual he deems fit, irrespective of whether an application has been filed with the Office of the Pardon Attorney” and at any time after the commission of an offense, the Congressional Research Service has written.
Has any other president pardoned family members?
Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared, for pleading guilty to lying about political donations, cheating on taxes and videotaping his brother-in-law having sex with a call girl. Trump has said he’ll nominate Kushner, who spent two years in prison, to serve as ambassador to France. Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger, who spent a year in prison on drug charges.
How controversial is Biden’s pardon of his son?
Trump assailed the president’s decision in a post on his Truth Social platform that alluded to hundreds of defendants convicted of crimes related to the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!,” Trump wrote.
The pardon has already provoked outrage by conservative media and Republican politicians, who have long tried to tie the president’s activities to his son; some Democrats have also expressed concern.
A Republican-controlled committee in the House of Representatives seized on the business dealings of Hunter Biden, and Republican Kevin McCarthy, then the House speaker, launched an impeachment probe into Joe Biden for what he called a “culture of corruption.” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer gathered evidence that from 2014 to 2019, Hunter Biden and associates received some $24 million from individuals or companies based in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan. But the impeachment inquiry ultimately failed.
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Biden’s Pardon of Son Threatens to Tarnish Legacy, Empower Trump
--With assistance from Chris Strohm.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
