In his final weeks in office, President Joe Biden has issued a full and conditional pardon of his son Hunter Biden for offences committed over an astonishing 10-year period, spanning January 2014 to December 2024.
The outgoing Commander-in-chief attempted to justify his decision on Sunday, saying Hunter had been “selectively and unfairly prosecuted” for political reasons. Video reels were then quickly shared online documenting some of the many times both Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House Press Secretary, and Biden himself insisted Hunter would not be pardoned.
Even The New York Times described this episode as
a remarkable turnaround for a man whose presidency and five-decade career was built in part on the idea that he would never interfere with the administration of justice.
The same city’s Post was far more scathing, calling Biden a “lame-duck” for performing this “about-face.” The newspaper also pointed to growing calls for President-Elect Donald Trump to pardon defendants tied to the Capitol riot of January 6th, 2021. Trump himself asked:
Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!
Hunter faced up to 25 years in prison for lying on a federal form about his drug addiction when he bought a gun in 2018, although he was highly unlikely to receive a sentence anywhere near that length. He also pleaded guilty in September to dodging taxes worth $1.4 million (€1.33 million).
For all the criticism the President’s pardoning may have attracted, it has not caused much shock, nationally or internationally. The Spectator’s Freddy Gray jibed that Democrat “Joe Biden’s whole presidency has been built on untruths.”
We were led to believe, for instance, that since 2021 the Commander-in-Chief has been fit and well enough to serve, when everybody could see that he was not. So the latest proof-of-dishonesty over the pardoning of Hunter Biden comes as no great surprise.
U.S. Oversight Chairman James Comer added that the now-dropped charges against Hunter “were just the tip of the iceberg in the blatant corruption that President Biden and the Biden Crime Family have lied about to the American people.”
Hunter Biden was due to take part in a sentencing hearing later this month.
