President Joe Biden on Sunday evening issued a full and unconditional pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, saying that he was "selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted" for political purposes and because of his relationship to his father.
The charges in Hunter's criminal cases, said Biden in a White House statement, "came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election."
According to the statement:
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. 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.
For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They'll be fair-minded. Here's the truth: 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.
In September of this year, the younger Biden was convicted on three felony tax offenses as well as six misdemeanor violations of the tax code. Earlier in the year, he was found guilty on three felony gun-related charges having to do with how he filled out a gun ownership registration.
Hunter has admitted to struggling with addiction and largely taken responsibility for his actions in those criminal cases, though he fought against the criminal convictions in court.
