President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, who was targeted by House Republicans, convicted for tax evasion, and buying a gun without admitting that he was a drug addict at the time.
Biden was immediately criticized for pardoning Hunter because he had said in the past that he would not do it.
The Washington Post reported:
President Joe Biden on Sunday pardoned his son Hunter, a controversial decision that reverses his long-standing pledge to not use his presidential powers to protect his only surviving son, who was found guilty of gun-related charges in Delaware and pleaded guilty to tax evasion in California.
Using his executive authority in the waning days of his presidency, Biden lifted the legal cloud that has hung over his son for several years. While the president had pledged several times not to pardon or commute Hunter Biden’s sentences for federal crimes, many close to him had expected the pardon would come, given the president’s loyalty to his family. The move also comes at a time when Biden will face few political ramifications, given that he is a lame duck and voters have already rendered their verdict on his administration by sending Donald Trump back to office.
In a lengthy statement on Sunday night, released just as he was preparing to depart for Africa, the president said that his son had been “being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.” He said that he did not interfere with the cases but that the cases were brought about because of political pressure on federal prosecutors.
“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. “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….”
“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,” Biden said in his statement. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
Hunter was prosecuted by Special Counsel David Weiss, Weiss, a Republican who started investigating Hunter in 2018. Republicans demanded that Merrick Garland appoint him, and Garland did. But then Republicans complained that Weiss was not strong enough. They wanted to drag Hunter through the mud, destroy his reputation, and hoped that Hunter’s tribulations hurt his father.
Can you imagine Trump’s Attorney General appointing a Democrat to investigate another Democrat?
The Republicans went after Hunter with a passion that would have been more appropriate for a mass murderer.
Hunter served years of humiliation and anxiety because he was a stand-in for his father.
It is just and right that his father pardoned Hunter.
A father owes it to his son to take care of him.
