WASHINGTON — Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Sunday night, a reversal for the president, who repeatedly said he would not use his executive authority to pardon his son or commute his sentence.
"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," Biden said in a statement.
Hunter Biden is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12 for his conviction on federal gun charges. He also is set to be sentenced on Dec. 16 in a separate criminal case in which he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges in September.
The pardon is expected to cover both his gun charges conviction and his guilty plea.
A senior White House official told NBC News, which was the first to report on the pardon decision, that the president decided over the weekend to grant his son a pardon and began to inform his senior aides Sunday.
The president also spoke about his son's struggles with addiction in his statement Sunday night, saying that his political opponents were trying to "break" him by going after Hunter.
"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," Biden said in his statement. "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."
Biden, 82, is using his pardon power to ensure Hunter Biden does not spend time in jail as he nears the end of his term in the White House and has no future election to face. In recent months, he has said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence.
“I will not pardon him,” he said in June after a jury found Hunter Biden guilty on three federal gun charges.
The president has discussed pardoning his son with some of his closest aides at least since Hunter Biden’s conviction in June, said two people with direct knowledge of the discussions about the matter. They said it was decided at the time that he would publicly say he would not pardon his son even though doing so remained on the table.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last month that Biden’s position has not changed.
“We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is ‘no,’” she said.
Asked Monday whether the president is still committed to not granting clemency for his son, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said: “The president has spoken to this.” Pressed about whether Biden’s position has changed, Bates replied, “I don’t have anything to add what he said already.”
First lady Jill Biden has also said her husband would not pardon their son.
“Joe and I both respect the judicial system, and that’s the bottom line,” she said in an interview in June.
Hunter Biden’s criminal trial in June was the first involving the child of a sitting president.
Pardoning him after that trial would have ignited a political firestorm for his father, who was campaigning for re-election. Republicans have for years attacked Hunter Biden over his foreign business dealings and accused him and the president of corruption. They have also argued that Hunter Biden was getting special treatment by the Justice Department because of his father’s political power.
GOP criticism reached a peak in July 2023 when Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in a deal with federal prosecutors over the tax and gun charges, which collapsed after a judge raised questions about it. That development led Attorney General Merrick Garland a couple weeks later to appoint the U.S. attorney investigating Hunter Biden, David Weiss, as a special counsel.
Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July, but a pardon before last month's election also could have generated political blowback on the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris after she took his place on the Democratic ticket.
Together, the 12 counts Hunter Biden is convicted of or has pleaded guilty to carry a maximum prison sentence of 42 years. But the maximum sentences typically are not given out for convictions of these crimes. The Justice Department has said, for instance, that while the tax charges carry a maximum sentence of 17 years, sentences are typically less than that.
Asked in an interview in June whether he would rule out a pardon for his son, Biden answered, “Yes.”
Days later, after Hunter Biden was convicted on federal gun charges by a jury in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, the president said in a statement that he would respect the outcome. He then told reporters he would abide by the jury’s decision.
“I’m extremely proud of my son Hunter,” Biden said. “He has overcome an addiction. He’s one of the brightest, most decent men I know, and I am satisfied that I’m not going to do anything. I said I abide by the jury decision. I will do that, and I will not pardon him.”
Neil Eggleston, who was White House counsel to President Barack Obama, told NBC News that “if I were his White House counsel, I would encourage him to pardon his son.” He said he has not been contacted or consulted by the White House about any pardon preparations.
“The clemency power has few limitations and certainly would extend to a Hunter Biden pardon,” Eggleston said.
Eggleston’s opinion echoes that of other former Justice Department and White House officials previously involved in presidential pardons who told NBC News that they thought Biden should exercise this power in advance of the incoming Trump administration.
