US President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden, who was convicted earlier this year of breaking federal gun and tax laws, is a “caricature of democracy,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
The outgoing US president backtracked on his earlier pledge not to interfere in his son’s cases and announced the pardon late on Sunday, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence.
Speaking to the Izvesita news outlet on Monday, Zakharova condemned the decision, describing it as a “caricature of democracy.”
In June, Hunter Biden was convicted of illegally buying and possessing a gun as a drug user. He was found guilty of lying on a federal firearms purchase form about his cocaine addiction in 2018.
In a separate case, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses in September. The sentencing in both cases had been scheduled for this month.
Joe Biden intervened in the case despite saying earlier that he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence. “I will not pardon him,” the US president said in June after a jury found Hunter Biden guilty.
The pardon applies to all offenses that were or may have been committed between January 1, 2014 and December 1, 2024, according to the White House.
This timeframe includes allegations from Republicans that Hunter Biden served as a “bagman” for his father in purportedly illicit business transactions in China and Ukraine. President Biden has consistently denied any involvement in or benefits from his son’s activities.
US President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have also slammed the outgoing president for going back on his word.
Trump, who has vowed to dramatically overhaul the Justice Department following the prosecution of his supporters for an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, said in a post on Sunday that Hunter Biden’s pardon was “such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice.”
US lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene argued that “this pardon is Joe Biden’s admission that Hunter is a criminal.”
Congressman Andy Biggs claimed that “Joe Biden will go down as one of the most corrupt presidents in American history.”