() – US President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son has left some Democrats furious over his choice after repeatedly and unequivocally stating that he would never take that step, even though a pardon had long seemed possible for the team. Hunter Biden’s legal.
Several officials who recently worked for Joe Biden said they never believed the president or White House advisers speaking on his behalf when they insisted in recent months that a pardon for Hunter Biden was off the table.
“Anyone who was close to the top knew he was probably going to do this. “Why would we pretend otherwise?” said a former senior West Wing adviser.
A different former senior White House official said they and others around them felt “confident” that the president would eventually pardon his son, while another former administration official put it this way: “It was too, painfully obvious.” that this was where things would end.”
Yet even as some of Joe Biden’s closest allies were baffled by the president’s last-minute pardon, Hunter Biden and his lawyers long believed it was possible, multiple sources told . That’s despite the White House saying a final decision on the pardon was made only this weekend.
The president’s move Sunday night to announce the pardon came after spending time with his family, including Hunter, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, over the Thanksgiving holiday and has led lawmakers in Biden’s own party to criticize him. . Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said as recently as Nov. 7 that a pardon for Hunter Biden was not being considered.
Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son presented a delicate balancing act for the president, who has long been fiercely loyal to his familyeven when that is to personal or political detriment.
Hunter Biden was convicted by a jury in June of illegally purchasing and possessing a gun as a drug user, after a harrowing trial that delved into his drug abuse and family dysfunction. He then pleaded guilty in September to nine tax crimes, stemming from $1.4 million in taxes he failed to pay while spending lavishly on escorts, strippers, cars and drugs.
Sources familiar with Hunter Biden’s legal strategy said he would not have agreed to plead guilty in September to all nine counts in the federal tax case — exposing himself to the possibility of 17 years in prison and more than $1 million in fines — without the expectation of clemency.
Legal pressure on Hunter Biden increased as his December sentencing dates approached. People close to the president’s son said they did not want him to have to submit to the sentence.
In the days before the pardon was issued, Hunter Biden’s lawyers circulated a 50-page document outlining the six-year investigation into the president’s son and blaming Donald Trump and his Republican allies for being the driving force behind his legal problems.
Although controversial, Joe Biden’s move to pardon a close family member or associate is not unheard of. Presidents of both parties have exercised their pardon power in ways that have raised eyebrows, though perhaps none did so after saying so firmly that they would not do so, as Biden did.
Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, his daughter’s father-in-law, in his final month in office. President Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger, who had pleaded guilty to a drug charge, on his last day in office.
Biden’s public reversal this weekend and issuing a “full and unconditional” pardon for his son has left some Democrats wondering why he had maintained that he would not take a course of action that seemed simply inevitable to so many around the president.
“As a parent, I understand it,” Rep. Greg Landsman, an Ohio Democrat, said in X. “But as someone who wants people to believe in public service again, it’s a setback.”
Another Democrat, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, said Biden’s decision placed “self-interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all.”
Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona said that while he respects the president, “I think he was wrong in this case.”
“This was not a politically motivated accusation,” Stanton said in X. “Hunter committed serious crimes and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”
One former administration official suggested that Monday’s reaction would have been less intense if Biden had not been so adamant for months that he did not seek a pardon for his son.
“I wonder if there was a way to be less upright about it, and more like, ‘We’re not spending our time thinking about that,’” the former administration official said.
The former West Wing senior adviser echoed that idea, saying there were multiple ways Biden could have left the door open to a pardon rather than ruling out its possibility entirely.
“Could I have been super honest?” they asked. “Like, ‘Hey, I don’t know, I can’t answer that right now.’”
Jean-Pierre, who on more than one occasion told reporters that Biden would not pardon his son, admitted on Monday that Trump’s victory in last month’s election had been a factor.
“It’s a no, I can answer that, it’s a no,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One, when asked if Biden would have pardoned his son if Vice President Kamala Harris had won the election.
But then she proceeded to insist that she was not interested in discussing an event that did not occur: “I can talk about where we are today, and therefore I can’t talk about hypotheses here. Where we are today, the president made this decision over the weekend.”
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