What does Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter mean?

President Joe Biden had long vowed not to pardon his son, Hunter, who was scheduled to be sentenced this month for convictions related to gun ownership and tax evasion. But on Sunday, the president did it anyway.

The broad pardon not only covers Hunter Biden’s convictions in two cases in Delaware and California, but also any other “crimes against the United States that he has committed or may have committed or participated in during the period since January 1 from 2014 to December 1, 2024.”

Biden is not the first president to use his pardon power to benefit people close to him. But it was still a stunning reversal for a man who pledged to restore norms and respect for the rule of law.

What is a pardon?

The U.S. Constitution says a president has the power to grant clemency, which includes both pardons and commutations. A pardon forgives federal criminal offenses; a commutation reduces sentences but is not as broad. The power has its roots in English law — the king could grant mercy to anyone — and it carried across the ocean to the American colonies and endured.

The United States Supreme Court has found that presidential pardon authority is very broad. And presidents use power a lot: Donald Trump granted clemency 237 times during his four years in office and Barack Obama granted clemency 1,927 times in his eight years. Presidents have pardoned drug offenses, fraud convictions, and Vietnam-era draft evaders, among many other things.

But a president can only grant pardons for federal crimes, not state ones. Impeachment convictions are not pardonable either.

What crimes was Hunter Biden accused of? Hunter Biden was convicted in June of lying on a federal form when he bought a gun in 2018 and swore he was not a drug user. Just months later, he pleaded guilty to charges accusing him of a scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in taxes. Prosecutors alleged he lived lavishly while defying tax law, spending his money on things like strippers and luxury hotels — “in short, on everything but his taxes.”

Both cases stemmed from a period in Hunter Biden’s life in which he struggled with drug and alcohol abuse before becoming sober in 2019.

After the gun trial aired sordid and unflattering details about Hunter Biden’s life, the president’s son said he agreed to plead guilty to the tax charges to spare his family another embarrassing criminal trial.

The tax trial was also expected to show details about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which Republicans have seized on to try to paint the Biden family as corrupt.

Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced this month in the two cases by judges in California and Delaware who were nominated to the bench by Trump.

Special counsel David Weiss’s office had not said whether prosecutors had planned to seek prison time. The tax charges carried up to 17 years behind bars and the weapons charges were punishable by up to 25 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines were expected to call for much less time and the younger Biden may have avoided time in prison altogether. prison.

Didn’t Biden say he wouldn’t pardon his son?

Yes. Hunter Biden has been under federal investigation since 2020. He struck a deal with federal prosecutors and was supposed to plead guilty last year to minor tax crimes and would have avoided trial for gun possession as long as he stayed out of trouble during two years.

But the deal quickly fell apart when the judge raised concerns about unusual aspects of it. Hunter was later charged in both cases, and has claimed that he was singled out because he is the president’s son.

The Democratic president told reporters earlier this summer that he would not pardon his son.

“I am extremely proud of my son Hunter. He has overcome an addiction. “He is one of the brightest and most decent men I know,” he said. “I abide by the jury’s decision. “I will do that and I will not pardon him.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said as recently as Nov. 8 that Biden would not pardon his son.

Why did Biden break his promise?

In his statement on Sunday, Biden said his son had been “selectively and unfairly prosecuted.” Biden has been concerned, as Hunter Biden was, about his political adversaries.

Additionally, President Biden is no longer running for office. He made his promise not to pardon his son before withdrawing from the presidential campaign in June.

In his statement, the president said it was clear that his son had been treated differently from other defendants in similar situations. The plea agreement fell apart and Biden’s political opponents took credit for pressuring the process, he said.

“No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases can come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was singled out just because he is my son, and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter, who has been sober for five and a half years, even in the face of relentless attacks and selective prosecution. By trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me, and there’s no reason to believe it’ll stop there. “That’s enough.”

Have other presidents pardoned members of their family or friends?

Yes. In his final weeks in office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He also pardoned several allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference. Trump announced plans over the weekend to nominate Charles Kushner as the US envoy to France in his next administration.

President Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton in 2001, after he had served time on drug charges. Clinton also pardoned his former business partner Susan McDougal, who had been sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the Whitewater real estate deal.

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