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Hunter Biden. | Photo courtesy of Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
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Ahead of Hunter Biden’s sentencing on a guilty plea to tax evasion, President Joe Biden on Sunday pardoned his son on that charge as well as a prior conviction for an illegal gun purchase.
Hunter Biden, 54, of Malibu, pleaded guilty Sept. 5 in Los Angeles federal court to federal tax-evasion charges. Sentencing was scheduled for Dec. 16.
In June, Biden was convicted of three felony counts in a separate case in Delaware involving a gun purchase. Biden was found guilty of falsely saying he was not using or addicted to drugs on a required gun-purchase form in 2018 and later admitting he had been addicted to illegal narcotics at the time of the gun buy.
The White House issued a statement explaining the full and unconditional pardon, which came a few weeks ahead of Biden leaving office.
“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” the president said. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.
“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,” the statement continued. “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.
“For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: 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,” the statement concluded.
Local Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump blasted the pardon decision.
The LA County Republican Party posted on social media, “Democrat lies, one of California’s largest exports.”
The post showed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre with the words, “No. It’s a no. It will always be a no. Biden will not pardon his son Hunter.” The post followed with, “Guess what? THEY LIED.”
Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social, “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” He added, “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?”
Trump was alluding to people jailed after being convicted of crimes committed during the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has suggested he could issue Jan. 6 pardons when he retakes office.
In his Sept. 5 court appearance, Hunter Biden admitted to the three felony and six misdemeanor charges with a possible sentence of 17 years in prison and fines around $1 million.
The indictment alleged that from 2016 through most of 2020, he spent the more than $1.4 million in owed tax money on a lavish lifestyle — “in short, everything but his taxes.”
Following the Sept. 5 court proceeding, Biden said he “went to trial in Delaware not realizing the anguish it would cause my family, and I will not put them through it again.”
He added that “when it became clear to me that the same prosecutors were focused not on justice but on dehumanizing me for my actions during my addiction, there was only one path left for me. I will not subject my family to more pain, more invasions of privacy and needless embarrassment. For all I have put them through over the years, I can spare them this, and so I have decided to plead guilty.”
During the time period of the tax charges, Biden was an Ivy League-educated attorney, lobbyist, consultant and businessperson, prosecutors said. He also was on the board of a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate and a Chinese private equity fund.
“He negotiated and executed contracts and agreements for business and legal services that paid millions of dollars of compensation to him and/or his domestic corporations, Owasco PC and Owasco LLC,” according to the indictment.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys noted he had repaid $2 million in back taxes and penalties and said they believed the case was brought “in direct response to political pressure,” according to court documents.
