December 2, 2024
With just a few weeks to exit office as US president, Joe Biden on Sunday issued an official pardon for his son Hunter.
Hunter Biden, was convicted earlier this year of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun — a felony — and has also pleaded guilty in a separate tax evasion trial, but had not faced sentencing.
The pardon, came despite previous assurance by president Biden that he would not intervene in his legal troubles.
Biden, in a statement said, “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 move, though not the first by a US president, is sure to bring about fresh scrutiny over the independence of the US judicial system especially at a time when incoming president Donald Trump has himself moved to appoint loyalists to the FBI and Justice Department.
Joe Biden, who will in few weeks exit office for Donald Trump to take office on January 20, had in previous statements repeatedly said he wouldn’t pardon his son.
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However, Biden on Sunday in a statement “I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively and unfairly, prosecuted.”
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.
“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.”
