▲ President Joe Biden and his son Hunter leaving mass on August 13, 2022.Photo Afp
Ap and Afp
La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, December 2, 2024, p. 27
Washington. Outgoing President Joe Biden yesterday pardoned his son, Hunter, preventing him from facing a prison sentence for federal convictions of serious crimes related to gun possession and tax evasion, thereby leaving aside his previous promises not to use the powers extraordinary measures of the presidency to benefit members of his family.
The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon or commute his son’s sentence after he was found guilty in the two cases in Delaware and California. The decision comes just weeks after Hunter Biden was sentenced in the firearms case and pleaded guilty to tax charges, and less than two months before Republican Donald Trump’s inauguration.
This ends a long legal saga for the president’s son, who publicly revealed that he was the subject of a federal investigation in December 2020, a month after his father’s electoral victory.
During an interview with ABC News in June, while his son Hunter was facing trial in the Delaware gun case, Biden ruled out a pardon or clemency for his son.
Just on November 8, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, ruled out a pardon or clemency for the president’s son, stating: We have been asked that question several times. Our answer remains the same: no.
In a statement issued last night, Biden stated: This day I signed a pardon for my son Hunterby emphasizing that the processes his son faced were politically motivated and a judicial error.
The charges in their cases arose only after they were instigated by several of my political opponents in Congress to attack me and oppose my election.Biden stressed. “No reasonable person looking at the facts in the Hunter cases can come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was singled out just because he is my son.
I hope Americans understand why a father and a president would make this decision.Biden added, stating that he made the decision over the weekend. The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday with Hunter and his family in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
What abuse!
In his first reaction to the measure, the future president, Donald Trump, compared the situation to that of his followers who attempted a coup by storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Does the pardon granted by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 hostages, who have already been in prison for years? What an abuse and what a miscarriage of justice!published in Truth Social.
Trump has repeatedly referred to the prisoners as hostageseven though a judge has rejected that description.
Lies on form
A federal court in Delaware found Hunter Biden guilty of three felonies for purchasing a firearm in 2018 when prosecutors say he lied on a federal form by claiming he was neither an illegal user nor a drug addict.
In the California case, his trial was scheduled for September, after being accused of not paying at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he surprisingly agreed to plead guilty to both misdemeanor and felony charges, hours after jury selection began.
Hunter Biden indicated he was pleading guilty in that case to spare his family further pain and shame after the gun trial revealed intimate details about his struggle with a crack addiction.
The tax evasion charges carry a sentence of up to 17 years in prison, while in the other trial he faced a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. Due to federal sentencing guidelines, however, prosecutors were expected to ask for a much lesser sentence, with the possibility of him avoiding prison altogether.
The president’s son said in an emailed statement that he will never take for granted the leniency he has been granted and pledged to dedicate the life he has rebuilt to help those who remain sick and suffering.
Arab Affairs
In other matters, the incoming president Donald Trump yesterday appointed Massad Boulos, a businessman of Lebanese descent and father-in-law of Tiffany, one of the magnate’s daughters, as senior advisor on Arab and Middle East Affairs.
Boulos organized the Trump campaign’s efforts to engage the Arab American community in Michigan, holding dozens of events in areas with large Arab American populations upset with President Joe Biden’s support for Israel and its war campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon. .
