President Biden grants his son a quick pardon before leaving
Not long before he must leave the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter. The 54-year-old son was awaiting punishment in lawsuits over tax fraud and illegal possession of firearms. But it won't come to that now, thanks to his father's presidential intervention.
Republicans reacted with shock at the outgoing president's decision, and newly elected President-elect Donald Trump, in response, immediately called for pardoning the stormers of the Capitol.
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax fraud in September of this year. Earlier this year, he had also been found guilty of violating gun laws. Among other things, he had lied about his drug use when purchasing a revolver. Sentencing in both cases was supposed to be set in December, but that will not happen now due to his father's intervention.
“No reasonable person examining the facts in these cases involving Hunter can come to any other conclusion than this: Hunter was singled out only because he is my son, and that cannot be,” Biden explained his remarkable decision in an announcement. He speaks of “a judicial error.”
(SR for Tagtik/Source: Reuters - NBC/Illustration picture by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States via WikiCommons licensed under CC BY 2.0)