President Joe Biden is set to pardon his son Hunter ahead of his first sentencing hearing next month, after previously claiming he would not interfere in the case
President Joe Biden is reportedly gearing up to pardon his son Hunter, despite earlier claims of non-interference. The US President issued a statement on Sunday evening, just days ahead of Hunter’s first sentencing hearing.
Hunter was found guilty of federal gun charges in June and admitted to tax evasion in September. His sentencing for the gun-related conviction is set for December 12, with the tax evasion sentencing following on December 16.
In his statement, Biden expressed his view that the probe into his son was driven by political motives from his adversaries. He praised President-elect Trump as ‘intelligent and experienced,’ noting the president-elect’s ability to find ‘solutions.’
“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,” Biden told the American public.
The statement went on: “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. 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,” reports the Mirror US.
In June, while Hunter was on trial for the gun charges, Biden told reporters: “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”
Then last month, days after Donald Trump won the presidential election, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated that Biden would not pardon his son. Hunter was found guilty of three felonies in a Delaware federal court that month.
Prosecutors alleged that while the president’s son was buying a gun in 2018 he lied on the federal form that he had never been addicted to drugs or used illegal substances though he had previously battled with a crack cocaine addiction. Then in September, he was set to stand trial in California where he was accused of not paying $1.4 million in taxes.
However, before it went to trial, Hunter pled guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges just hours before jury selection.
Hunter was potentially looking at a maximum of 17 years behind bars for tax evasion and up to 25 years for the firearm offences. However, there was a chance he could have escaped a prison sentence altogether.