Biden Pardons His Son Hunter           12/02 06:09

   President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, sparing the younger Biden a 
possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions and 
reversing his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the 
presidency for the benefit of his family.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, sparing the 
younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax 
convictions and reversing his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers 
of the presidency for the benefit of his family.

   The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son or 
commute his sentence after convictions in the two cases in Delaware and 
California. The move on Sunday night comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to 
receive his punishment after his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty 
plea on tax charges, and less than two months before President-elect Donald 
Trump is set to return to the White House.

   It caps a long-running legal saga for the younger Biden, who publicly 
disclosed he was under federal investigation in December 2020 -- a month after 
his father's 2020 victory -- and casts a pall over the elder Biden's legacy.

   Biden, who time and again pledged to Americans that he would restore norms 
and respect for the rule of law after Trump's first term in office, ultimately 
used his position to help his son, breaking his public pledge to Americans that 
he would do no such thing.

   In a statement released Sunday evening, Biden said, "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."

   The president's sweeping pardon covers not just the gun and tax offenses 
against the younger Biden, but also any other "offenses against the United 
States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the 
period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024."

   In June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, 
telling reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware gun case, "I abide by 
the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him."

   As recently as Nov. 8, days after Trump's victory, White House press 
secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger 
Biden, saying, "We've been asked that question multiple times. Our answer 
stands, which is no."

   The elder Biden has publicly stood by his only living son as Hunter 
descended into serious drug addiction and threw his family life into turmoil 
before getting back on track in recent years. The president's political rivals 
have long used Hunter Biden's myriad mistakes as a political cudgel against his 
father: In one hearing, lawmakers displayed photos of the drug-addled 
president's son half-naked in a seedy hotel.

   House Republicans also sought to use the younger Biden's years of 
questionable overseas business ventures in a since-abandoned attempt to impeach 
his father, who has long denied involvement in his son's dealings or benefiting 
from them in any way.

   "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," 
Biden said in his statement. "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."

   "I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to 
this decision," Biden added, claiming he made the decision this weekend.

   The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, 
Massachusetts, with Hunter and his family, and departed for Angola later Sunday 
on what may be his last foreign trip as president before leaving office on Jan. 
20, 2025.

   Hunter Biden was convicted in June in Delaware federal court of three 
felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018 when, prosecutors said, he lied on a 
federal form by claiming he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

   He had been set to stand trial in September in the California case accusing 
him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he agreed to plead 
guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges in a surprise move hours after jury 
selection was set to begin.

   David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware who negotiated 
the plea deal, was subsequently named a special counsel by Attorney General 
Merrick Garland to have more autonomy over the prosecution of the president's 
son.

   Hunter Biden said he was pleading guilty in that case to spare his family 
more pain and embarrassment after the gun trial aired salacious details about 
his struggles with a crack cocaine addiction.

   The tax charges carry up to 17 years behind bars and the gun charges are 
punishable by up to 25 years in prison, though federal sentencing guidelines 
were expected to call for far less time and it was possible he would have 
avoided prison time entirely.

   Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced this month in the two federal 
cases, which the special counsel brought after a plea deal with prosecutors 
that likely would have spared him prison time fell apart under scrutiny by a 
judge. Under the original deal, Hunter was supposed to plead guilty to 
misdemeanor tax offenses and and would have avoided prosecution in the gun case 
as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years.

   But the plea hearing quickly unraveled last year when the judge raised 
concerns about unusual aspects of the deal. The younger Biden was subsequently 
indicted in the two cases.

   Hunter Biden's legal team this weekend released a 52-page white paper titled 
"The political prosecutions of Hunter Biden," describing the president's son as 
a "surrogate to attack and injure his father, both as a candidate in 2020 and 
later as president."

   The younger Biden's lawyers have long argued that prosecutors bowed to 
political pressure to indict the president's son amid heavy criticism by Trump 
and other Republicans of what they called the "sweetheart" plea deal.

   Rep. James Comer, one of the Republican chairmen leading congressional 
investigations into Biden's family, blasted the president's pardon, saying that 
the evidence against Hunter was "just the tip of the iceberg."

   "It's unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of 
wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can 
to avoid accountability," Comer said on X, the website formerly known as 
Twitter.

   Biden is hardly the first president to deploy his pardon powers to benefit 
those close to him.

   In his final weeks in office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of 
his son-in law, Jared Kushner, as well as multiple allies convicted in special 
counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Trump over the weekend announced 
plans to nominate the elder Kushner to be the U.S. envoy to France in his next 
administration.

   Trump, who has pledged to dramatically overhaul and install loyalists across 
the Justice Department after he was prosecuted for his role in trying to 
subvert the 2020 presidential election, said in a social media post on Sunday 
that Hunter Biden's pardon was "such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice."

   "Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have 
now been imprisoned for years?" Trump asked, referring to those convicted in 
the violent Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

   Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement that he will never take for 
granted the relief granted to him and vowed to devote the life he has rebuilt 
"to helping those who are still sick and suffering."

   "I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest 
days of my addiction -- mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate 
and shame me and my family for political sport," the younger Biden said.

   Hunter Biden's legal team filed Sunday night in both Los Angeles and 
Delaware asking the judges handling his gun and tax cases to immediately 
dismiss them, citing the pardon.

   A spokesperson for Weiss did not respond to messages seeking comment Sunday 
night.

   NBC News was first to report Biden was expected to pardon his son Sunday.