The extraordinary legal breadth of the pardon granted to Hunter Biden by his father, outgoing US President Joe Biden, can only be compared to that given to former President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, Politico reported on Monday, citing a US official.
Hunter Biden was convicted earlier this year of tax evasion and purchasing a gun while he was addicted to crack cocaine. On Sunday his father, President Joe Biden went back on earlier promises to stay out of criminal proceedings against his son, and granted Hunter a full and unconditional pardon. The White House document covers any crimes committed or taken part in from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024.
This remarkably wide reach can only be compared to the pardon given by then-President Gerald Ford to former President Richard Nixon in 1974, in the wake of the Watergate spying scandal, former US pardon attorney Margaret Love told Politico. She served in the Justice Department position devoted to assisting the president on clemency issues for seven years in the 1990s.
“I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” she said. “Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned.”
President Biden’s decision applies to all offenses that were or could have been committed during the period of time Republicans claim Hunter Biden was allegedly involved in his family’s influence peddling corruption schemes in China and Ukraine. Both Bidens have denied all claims.
On Monday, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre defended the pardon, claiming that the outgoing president was concerned that his son would face further prosecution.
“One of the reasons the president did the pardon is because they didn’t seem like his political opponents would let go of it,” the spokesperson told the press on Monday.
The decision has brought a storm of criticism from Republicans in Congress, with several calling the move an admission of Hunter Biden’s guilt, and an “abuse of law.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s camp has pointed to the difference in treatment of the younger Biden’s case in comparison to the criminal prosecution of Trump. The “witch hunts” against the president-elect prove that the Democrat-controlled DOJ was “weaponizing the justice system,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of campaign finance violations. The sentencing was adjourned indefinitely this November, weeks after the president-elect secured another term in the White House. A Columbia judge dropped a case alleging Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election last week. A similar case in Georgia is expected to be dropped before the president-elect takes office in January.