 "'Enough is enough': Biden pardons son Hunter as Trump presidency looms")
US President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden on Sunday as the upcoming presidency of President-elect Donald Trump worries the family. The presidential pardon was seen as a major reversal for Biden, who repeatedly said that he would not use his executive authority to pardon his son and let the judicial system complete its process.
“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 POTUS said in a statement on Sunday.
Hunter, who has been marred by a plethora of scandals, was scheduled to be sentenced on December 12. The political scion was facing conviction on federal gun charges. He was also slated to be sentenced on December 16 in a separate criminal case related to his federal tax evasion to which he pleaded guilty in September this year.
Biden speaks about his son’s struggles with addiction
According to NBC News, the pardon is expected to cover both the conviction and the guilty plea Hunter is involved in. In his Sunday statement, Biden mentioned his son’s struggles with addiction. He insisted that his political opponents were trying to “break him” by going after his son.
“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,” Biden said in his statement. “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half 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,” the president added.
However, in June, the 82-year-old president said that he wouldn’t pardon his son after a jury found him guilty on three federal charges. “I will not pardon him,” he remarked at that time. Biden is now using his power to pardon, to ensure that his son does not face any sort of jail time as his presidency comes to an end.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsA senior White House official told NBC News that Biden had discussed pardoning his son with some of his closest aides over the weekend. However, many were surprised by the move since the Biden family maintained that they would not go this route.
In June this year, First Lady Jill Biden said that her husband would not pardon their son. “Joe and I both respect the judicial system, and that’s the bottom line,” she said in an interview. It is important to note that this is the first time a child of the sitting president has been convicted in a criminal or a federal case.
Many believed that Biden did not pardon him immediately after the conviction, since doing so would have ignited a political firestorm for him since he was still campaigning for re-election. It is important to note that granting pardons is not an unusual task, US presidents regularly sign pardons at the end of their terms. However, the pardon rarely involves cases where their own family members are facing trials.
With inputs from agencies.
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