President Biden’s pardon encompasses all potential crimes his son may have committed over the past decade.
The sweeping nature of the pardon granted to Hunter Biden by his father, President Joe Biden, is unprecedented, drawing comparisons to President Nixon’s pardon following the Watergate scandal, according to a Politico report citing a US official.
Hunter Biden’s earlier convictions for tax evasion and illegal gun purchase while addicted to crack cocaine prompted the pardon, which contradicts President Biden’s previous statements. The pardon, issued Sunday, is unconditional and covers any crimes committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024.
This expansive pardon is comparable only to the one granted to Richard Nixon in 1974, former US pardon attorney Margaret Love told Politico. Love, who served seven years in the Justice Department’s Office of Pardon Attorney during the 1990s, noted, “I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” adding, “Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned.”
The pardon covers the entire period Republicans allege Hunter Biden participated in his family’s purported influence-peddling schemes in China and Ukraine. Both Bidens deny these allegations.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre defended the pardon on Monday, suggesting it was partly motivated by concerns over continued political attacks on Hunter Biden. “One of the reasons the president did the pardon is because they didn’t seem like his political opponents would let go of it,” she stated.
The decision has sparked fierce Republican criticism, with many calling it an admission of guilt and an “abuse of law.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s team highlighted the disparity between Hunter Biden’s pardon and Trump’s own legal battles, claiming the Democrat-controlled Department of Justice is “weaponizing the justice system” through “witch hunts,” according to Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung.
In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of campaign finance violations. Sentencing was postponed indefinitely in November, shortly after his re-election. A Columbia judge dismissed a case alleging Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election results last week, and a similar case in Georgia is expected to be dismissed before his inauguration in January.