President Joe Biden acknowledged that his decision to pardon Hunter may set a bad precedent in a new interview before his exit from the White House, but insisted that “two factors” convinced him that his own Justice Department had overstepped in prosecuting his son.
Biden, 82, issued a sweeping pardon of Hunter, 54, last month before the latter’s sentencing in two separate cases involving tax misconduct and the illegal purchase of a firearm.
Biden and his staff repeatedly insisted throughout his presidency that he would not use his presidential powers to grant his son clemency, a pledge many of his allies held up as evidence of his respect for the judicial system. When asked by ABC News anchor David Muir last June whether he had ruled out the possibility of pardoning Hunter, Biden simply responded, “Yes.”
The move was sharply criticized by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who took issue with the president’s blatant flip-flop.
In an interview with USA Today published Wednesday morning, the outgoing president defended his final decision but noted he hopes the pardon of his son doesn’t set a precedent for future presidents to “abuse” their pardon powers.
“I hope not, because I meant what I said when I was asked whether I was going to pardon my son. But then I found out two factors,” he told USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page.
The first factor was that Hunter Biden eventually paid all of his back taxes, a fact the president was likely well aware of when he repeatedly vowed not to issue the pardon.
Hunter was hit with nine charges for failing to file his tax returns between 2016 and 2019 and filing false tax returns in 2018.
“He was fighting a drug problem. And he beat it. He’s been square and sober for almost six years now,” Biden said before he appeared to confuse the timeline of his son’s actions. “This was back in '80, I mean excuse me, in 2000 and. . . What year was it? Anyway, long time ago. And that he paid it all.”
“And that there were hundreds of people with only 3, 4, or $500,000 who were being, moving on civilly,” he added. “He paid all his taxes. He paid the back taxes. He paid. . . He was late. He should have paid it on time. And that he was in a court throughout a plea deal that was agreed to.”
In fact, Hunter did not pay his back taxes until 2019, thanks to a loan from wealthy patron and Democratic donor Kevin Morris.
Prosecutors in the tax case initially offered Hunter a deal in which he would avoid prison time and be spared prosecution for any other federal crimes he may have committed over a ten year period in an exchange for a guilty plea, but the sweetheart deal collapsed after the judge raised concerns over the breadth of the immunity the deal would have conferred on Biden.
The second factor that Biden cited was that the allegation involving his son lying on a federal gun-buying form about his active drug use at that time had never been tried in a criminal case before.
“The point was, no one’s ever been tried on that. Nobody,” Biden asserted. “And they potentially put him in jail for X number of years for that. He had [the gun] for 10 days. Two days in his possession. No weapon, no bullets, no movement, no leave. And it got returned. And no one’s ever been tried for that.”
Americans are routinely prosecuted for being in possession of a firearm while intoxicated or in the presence of illegal narcotics. While it’s exceedingly difficult to prove that an individual lied about their drug use on a federal gun-purchase background check form, Hunter provided prosecutors with ample evidence by revealing in his memoir that he was using crack cocaine roughly every 15 minutes around the time he purchased the gun.
Biden said this is why he “stepped in,” noting the criminal investigations brought by Department of Justice special counsel David Weiss happened under his administration and not under that of President-elect Donald Trump.
Hunter Biden’s California tax case and Delaware gun case were both dropped following his father’s sweeping presidential pardon. The judge presiding over the tax case took issue with Biden’s argument that his son was singled out for political reasons, saying two judges already rejected that argument.
“The President's own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges. In the President's estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people,” U.S. District judge Mark Scarsi wrote in December.
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