US President Joe Biden said on Sunday that he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden.
“Today I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the decision-making process of the Department of Justice, and I have kept my word even as I watched my son be selectively and wrongly prosecuted,” he said in a statement released by the White House.
The younger Biden was convicted earlier this year of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun — a felony — and also pleaded guilty in a separate trial to tax evasion.
The White House had said several times, as recently as September, that Biden would not pardon or commute the sentences of his son, a recovering drug addict who has become a target of Republicans, including US President-elect Donald Trump.
At the same time, criminal cases against Trump after a sweeping ruling on presidential immunity by the US Supreme Court – which all but ensured that Biden’s Republican rival will likely never see a prison cell, even after his historic conviction for falsifying business records in May.
“No reasonable person examining the facts of Hunter’s cases can come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was chosen only because he is my son,” Biden said.
“There was an attempt to break Hunter – who has been sober for five and a half years, even in the face of relentless attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they tried to break me – and there is no There is reason to believe that it will stop here.”
Biden said he made the decision over the weekend. The US president, his wife Jill Biden and their family, including Hunter, spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and returned to Washington on Saturday evening.
“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but while I struggled with that, I also believe that crude politics infected this process and led to a mistrial — and once that decision was made this weekend, there was no point delay it further,” Biden said.
“I hope Americans understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”