President Joe Biden has issued an unconditional pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, who earlier this year became the first child of a sitting U.S. president to be convicted of a crime.
In June, Hunter was convicted on charges of illegal possession of a firearm and drug offenses, as federal law prohibits drug addicts from owning firearms. In September, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges.
Hunter Biden, 54, previously worked as a lawyer and lobbyist abroad, including in China and Ukraine. He was discharged from the U.S. Navy in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine.
In a statement accompanying the pardon, President Biden described his son as the victim of political persecution. “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.
The president criticized the collapse of a plea deal negotiated between Hunter’s legal team and the Department of Justice, blaming political interference. “A carefully negotiated plea deal unraveled in the courtroom, with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for applying political pressure on the process,” Biden stated.
The president defended his decision, saying he refrained from interfering in the Justice Department’s decisions. “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,” he said.
Biden also praised his son’s resilience, highlighting his sobriety. “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,” the president said.
The pardon is not without precedent. In 2001, President Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother, Roger Clinton, for a cocaine-related offense committed in 1985. In 2020, President Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, who was convicted on charges of tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions.
Biden acknowledged the political ramifications of the pardon but expressed confidence in his decision. “There was no sense in delaying it further,” he said. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”
