President Biden Pardons His Son Hunter Weeks Before Trump Takes Office
www.nytimes.com
The pardon comes weeks before President Biden leaves office and transfers power to President-elect Donald J. Trump, who spent years attacking Hunter Biden over his legal and personal issues.

President Biden’s hypocrisy on full display: Pardons his own son after making a point about ‘independent’ justice"

In a move that’s being hailed as a “full and unconditional” pardon, President Joe Biden has announced that he’s granting his son Hunter Biden a free pass for all federal charges related to his time between 2014-2024. Just 50 days before leaving office, Biden had previously declared that he wouldn’t be making the move, stating he’d abide by the jury’s decision. But now, it seems he was just playing a different tune.

TL;DR

President Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was facing up to 25 years in prison for lying on a federal form about his drug addiction. This comes after months of saying he wouldn’t make the move, and is being met with criticism from politicians and others who called him out on his earlier stance. A case of “my family is more important than I am” - how about keeping your promises for once?

    • Lasherz12@lemmy.world
      6·
      2 days ago

      You can only pardon someone who was convicted of a crime. This was a topic with “general” Flynn, who Trump desperately wanted to prepardon so that they would stop digging into his obvious and blatant corrupt ties to foreign oligarchs. It will also probably be discussed again in relation to Tulsi and her ties to Russia.

      Edit: My bad, that was untrue as it turns out.

      • randy@lemmy.ca
        5·
        2 days ago

        You can only pardon someone who was convicted of a crime.

        I don’t believe that’s true. See the pardon of Richard Nixon, who was never even impeached, let alone charged. I believe there’s some debate on the validity of such a pardon, but none (including Nixon’s pardon) have been challenged in court.

        • no banana@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 days ago

          It is indeed untrue. Joe just gave Hunter a general pardon spanning a length of time. Not for a specified crime, necessarily.

        • Lasherz12@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 days ago

          I wouldn’t hold it to the media to make it seem like it was more unprecedented, maybe the trick was that he wasn’t even charged yet?

        • SSTF@lemmy.world
          6·
          2 days ago

          To bolster your point, Andrew Johnson issued a blanket pardon to all Confederate soldiers in regards to treason and insurrection. Not every individual former Confederate soldier had been convicted of these crimes, but still gained immunity.