President Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, cancelling his criminal convictions on tax and gun charges despite saying earlier this year he wouldn’t grant such a reprieve.
Hunter is due to appear at sentencing hearings later this month in Delaware and California, where he faces potentially lengthy prison terms.
In a statement, the President said it was clear his son had been “treated differently” by the Justice Department and “singled out only because he is my son—and that is wrong.”
“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.”
The pardon covered offences “which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in” from the beginning of 2014. In 2014 Hunter joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that has figured prominently in investigations of his past business dealings.
“President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability,” Rep. James Comer (R. Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said.
Some Democrats also expressed concerns that Biden was putting his family ahead of the country and that it set a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents.
Trump in a social-media post called the pardon “an abuse and miscarriage of Justice.”
[Photo: Screenshot/New York Post]