President Biden Pardons His Son Hunter Weeks Before Trump Takes Office
www.nytimes.com
The pardon comes weeks before President Biden leaves office and transfers power to President-elect Donald J. Trump, who spent years attacking Hunter Biden over his legal and personal issues.

President Biden’s hypocrisy on full display: Pardons his own son after making a point about ‘independent’ justice"

In a move that’s being hailed as a “full and unconditional” pardon, President Joe Biden has announced that he’s granting his son Hunter Biden a free pass for all federal charges related to his time between 2014-2024. Just 50 days before leaving office, Biden had previously declared that he wouldn’t be making the move, stating he’d abide by the jury’s decision. But now, it seems he was just playing a different tune.

TL;DR

President Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was facing up to 25 years in prison for lying on a federal form about his drug addiction. This comes after months of saying he wouldn’t make the move, and is being met with criticism from politicians and others who called him out on his earlier stance. A case of “my family is more important than I am” - how about keeping your promises for once?

  • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
    71·
    6 hours ago

    Despite what Biden may try and spin this as, this is not just about the (aggressively politicized and pursued) 4473 ‘unlawful user’ perjury charge - otherwise why include the years prior to that act?

    President Joe Biden’s son is charged with lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days in Delaware

    Because Biden pardoned him from 2014 to present, it also includes the known tax evasion and FARA illicit lobbying concerns.

    The Justice Department on Tuesday [June 18th 2023] said the investigation into Hunter Biden was “ongoing” even as it announced terms of a plea agreement [for gun and tax charges]

    DoJ felt that there was more to investigate even if the tax and gun charges were covered in a plea deal. Read: there’s something there regarding Hunter’s lobbying efforts - and from internal Burisma emails he knew about the law and FARA concerns.

    In the same April 2014 email, Hunter Biden indicated that Burisma’s officials “need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers, and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board.”

    Biden is right that most 4473 charges would never get this far - what he’s cynically not pointing out (from the bully pulpit, lame duck or not) is the context of why prosecutors drop gun charges in plea deals or pursue maximal charges at trial, or the wider criminal case against his son.

    • chaogomu@lemmy.world
      101·
      5 hours ago

      The simple truth is, the entire case against Hunter Biden was politically motivated from the start.

      He paid the back taxes and the gun charges are normally laughed out of court.

      This was always a Republican prosecutor wanting to make a name for themselves, and with Trump taking power, well, we all know how vindictive Trump is.

      I don’t expect this pardon to matter much, Trump and the Republicans don’t care about law or tradition or reality. They care about power, and are less than 2 months away from it.

      • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
        33·
        3 hours ago

        You’re missing my point, Biden did not give his failson a targeted pardon nor a blanket universal pardon for his whole lifetime. The gun charge stems from a crime in 2018. The tax charge is from as early as 2015. The illegal lobbying/FARA investigation stretches to at least 2014. Witch hunt investigation or not, it was sustained into federal charges and was going to trial, out of a California and Delaware court - not Texas or Alabama.

        If this pardon is just about the gun charge, as Biden alleges, why extend it back beyond 2018 and into 2014 when the alleged FARA/lobbying crimes were committed? Or if he’s so concerned about his son’s future unjust prosecution under a Trump DoJ, why is Biden blithely consenting to handing over power to Trump after the Supreme Court gave him near unlimited executive power?