President Joe Biden on Sunday issued a “full and unconditional” pardon for his son Hunter Biden, who has been dogged by Republican attacks for years. The president’s son is scheduled to be sentenced this month on federal gun charges and federal tax evasion charges following a conviction and a guilty plea, respectively.
The president’s decision marks a clear reversal after he repeatedly vowed not to use his executive authority to pardon his son or commute his sentence. In a White House statement Sunday, Biden said he issued the pardon because he believes the charges were politically motivated.
“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,” the president said.
He added:
For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice — and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.
The pardon comes just week
