President Biden and the White House have emphatically insisted the president wouldn’t pardon his son, Hunter Biden. But all of that changed Sunday, when Biden announced he would indeed grant leniency on Hunter,

Nearly all pardons target specific allegations or charges, making Hunter Biden’s unusual. The only other precedent was President Gerald Ford’s highly controversial move in which he pardoned “all offenses against the United States” that Nixon “has committed or may have committed” over the course of his presidency.

The federal investigation into Hunter Biden has been ongoing since 2020, when his father Joe Biden was elected president.

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 Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter deepened an entanglement of politics and the rule of law that has tarnished faith in American justice and is almost certain to worsen in Donald Trump’s second term.

Joe Biden had repeatedly denied that he was going to pardon his son Hunter for his gun and tax evasion convictions or commute what was shaping up to be a substantive prison sentence. On the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving – at a moment when the American public’s attention was decidedly elsewhere – he announced he had changed his mind.

Hunter Biden had pleaded guilty to tax violations and was convicted on firearms-related charges and faced upcoming sentencing. The Democratic president's pardon comes as Republican President-elect Donald Trump,

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The president had promised not to pardon Hunter Biden, who was convicted of gun-related charges and had pleaded guilty in a tax case.