Biden issues a ‘full and unconditional pardon’ of his son Hunter Biden

Washington • President Joe Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon of his son Hunter on Sunday night, using the power of his office to wave aside years of legal troubles, including a federal conviction for illegally buying a gun.

In a statement issued by the White House, Biden said he had decided to issue the executive grant of clemency for his son “for those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024.”

He said he did so because the charges against his son were politically motivated and designed to hurt the president politically.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said in the statement. “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.”

He added: “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been 5 1/2 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.”

Many of the president’s allies and critics had expected him to use the unique authority vested only in his office, even though the president’s spokesperson had denied for months that Biden had any intention of doing so. NBC News first reported Sunday evening that Biden had in fact decided to pardon his son.

The reversal by Biden came just 50 days before he is set to leave the White House and transfer power to President-elect Donald Trump, who spent years attacking Hunter Biden over his legal and personal issues as a part of series of broadsides against Biden’s family.

After the president’s son was convicted on three federal felony counts for illegally purchasing a gun, Biden said he would not pardon or commute the sentence of his son.

“I said I’d abide by the jury decision,” Biden told reporters during the Group of 7 summit in June. “I will do that.”

Hunter Biden faced as much as 25 years in prison for lying on a federal form about his drug addiction when he bought a handgun in 2018, but he was unlikely to receive a sentence near that length. First-time offenders who did not use weapons for a violent crime typically receive much lighter sentences. Legal analysts have said it was possible that the president’s son could receive a year or less behind bars or even probation.

It is not the first time a president has used his executive power to commute the sentence of a family member. On his last day in office, President Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton for old cocaine charges. A month before leaving office, Trump pardoned his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, for tax evasion and other crimes.

Both Roger Clinton and Charles Kushner had long since completed their prison terms, and the pardons were about forgiveness or vindication rather than avoiding time behind bars. Over the weekend, Trump said that he would nominate Charles Kushner to be the U.S. ambassador to France.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.