US President Joe Biden has issued an official pardon for his son Hunter, who was facing sentencing for two criminal cases, despite previously ruling it out.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the president said his son had been \u201csingled out\u201d and called his cases \u201ca miscarriage of justice\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax charges earlier in September and was found guilty of being an illegal drug user in possession of a gun in June \u2013 becoming the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the pardon, President-elect Donald Trump said: \u201cDoes the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the [6 January] Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!\u201d.<\/p>\n
The full and unconditional pardon comes after the president had previously said he would not give his son clemency.<\/p>\n
Just a couple of months ago, in September, the White House press secretary said that Biden would not issue a pardon for his son.<\/p>\n
But on Sunday evening, President Biden said although he believed in the justice system, \u201cpolitics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department\u2019s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Biden said he wrestled with the decision, and added: \u201conce I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
In a reaction statement, Hunter Biden said mistakes he made during the darkest days of his addiction had been \u201cexploited to publicly humiliate and shame\u201d his family for political sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering,\u201d the 54-year-old added.<\/p>\n
The younger Biden has been sober for five-and-a-half years, his father said.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time a US president has pardoned a member of their family.<\/p>\n
Bill Clinton pardoned his younger half-brother, Roger Clinton, for a 1985 cocaine-related offence in 2001.<\/p>\n
In 2020, Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of his daughter Ivanka. President-elect Trump has recently\u00a0announced Kushner as ambassador to France in his new cabinet.<\/p>\n
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine counts of federal tax fraud in September, for which he had been facing up to 17 years in prison.<\/p>\n
He was also convicted of three felonies in connection with a gun purchase in June, for which he had been facing up to 25 years in prison.<\/p>\n
Sentencing for these cases had been scheduled for 12 and 16 December.<\/p>\n
His legal troubles had been a dark cloud over his father\u2019s presidential campaign, which came to an end in July after\u00a0Biden pulled out of the election race.<\/p>\n
Biden endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to succeed him as the Democratic candidate, who\u00a0lost the election to Republican Donald Trump\u00a0in November.<\/p>\n
Trump is set to take over the Oval Office from Biden on 20 January 2025 \u2013 Inauguration Day.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The post Joe Biden issues official pardon for son, Hunter<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US President Joe Biden has issued an official pardon for his son Hunter, who was facing sentencing for two criminal cases, despite previously ruling it out. In a statement, the president said his son had been \u201csingled out\u201d and called his cases \u201ca miscarriage of justice\u201d. Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax charges earlier in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}