WASHINGTON DC: A day after U.S. President Joe Biden announced the pardon of his son Hunter, the White House said the president is expected to issue more pardons and clemencies before he leaves office next month.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday that Biden is “thinking through that process very thoroughly.”
“I don’t have a timeline for you,” Jean-Pierre said. “As you know, this usually happens towards the end. And so, the president is going through that process, thinking through that process. I’m not going to get ahead of him. But you can expect more announcements to come.”
Hunter Biden was facing sentencing this month for gun and tax offenses and could have been imprisoned for years.
Biden had for months pledged not to pardon his 54-year-old son, a lawyer who for years was caught up in cocaine addiction as his life spiraled out of control.
But the president said in a statement late Sunday that Hunter Biden’s prosecution was selective and politically motivated, aimed at undercutting his reelection campaign before he dropped out of the race in July for another four-year term.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said.
Hunter Biden was convicted of three felonies in June for a 2018 gun purchase. Prosecutors said he falsely claimed on a federal form to not be illegally using or addicted to drugs.
He also pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges in a case where he was accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes.
He faced up to 17 years in federal prison in the tax case during a scheduled sentencing hearing in Los Angeles on December 16, although sentencing experts said that most likely as a first-time offender, he would have served no more than 36 months behind bars.
Hunter Biden was facing a stiffer maximum sentence, 25 years, in the gun case but was more likely, based on precedent in similar cases, to be handed a much shorter sentence, perhaps up to 16 months during a hearing scheduled in Delaware for December 13.
The president’s action Sunday pardoned Hunter Biden in both cases, as well as any offense he “has committed or may have committed or taken part” from January 1, 2014, to January 1, 2024.
Hunter Biden said in a statement, “I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.”
The president said in his statement that he hopes “Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”
(VOA)
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