Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he had pardoned his son Hunter Biden. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts in Hunter's case could come to a conclusion other than that he was persecuted simply because he is my son,” he said. The US president had previously repeatedly said that he would not sign the pardon.
“Today I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. Since the day I took office, I have said I would not interfere with the Department of Justice's decision-making process, and I have kept my word, even as I watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted,” he wrote Joe Biden in a statement released by the White House.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of the Hunter case could come to a conclusion other than that Hunter was persecuted simply because he is my son,” Joe Biden wrote. “Attempts were made to break Hunter, who has been sober for five and a half years. By trying to break Hunter, they were trying to break me, and there is no reason to believe it will end there. Enough of this,” he said.
Hunter Biden EPA/CAROLINE BREHMAN
“Here's the truth: I believe in the justice system, but I also know that harsh politics infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice, and when I made this decision this weekend, there was no reason to delay,” he wrote. “I hope that Americans will understand why the father and the president made such a decision,” he emphasized.
Both President Joe Biden and a White House spokeswoman have repeatedly said the president has no intention of pardoning his son.
Hunter Biden found guilty
Hunter Biden became elected in June this year found guilty by jury on two counts lying about drug use on an authorization form to purchase a Colt Cobra revolver in 2018 and in connection with one count of possession of a firearm by a person using or addicted to drugs.
In September, the son of the American leader he pleaded guilty in another trialconcluding nine counts in federal tax avoidance cases. The special prosecutor appointed to handle Biden's case, David Weiss, accused him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes between 2016 and 2019 while leading an “extravagant lifestyle.”
Hunter Biden faced up to 17 years in prison or a fine of up to $1.3 million for tax crimes and up to 25 years in prison for lying on a gun application.
Hunter Biden is the first son of a sitting US president in historyconvicted in a criminal trial. In recent years, he has been one of the main targets of political attacks by Republicans, who also accused him of “trading his father's influence” in contacts with foreign contractors, including China and Ukraine. Despite a years-long investigation by the House Oversight Committee and the formal initiation of an impeachment inquiry, Republicans have yet to prove that President Biden was involved in his son's activities.
Main photo source: PAP/EPA/AARON SCHWARTZ / POOL