Joe Biden Issues a ‘Full and Unconditional Pardon’ of His Son Hunter Biden
LAGOS DECEMBER 2ND (NEWSRANGERS)-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.
In a statement issued by the White House, Mr. Biden said he had decided to issue the executive grant of clemency for his son “for those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024.”
He said he made the decision because the charges against Hunter were politically motivated and designed to hurt him politically.
“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,” Mr. Biden said in the statement. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.”
He added: “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
It was a remarkable turnaround for a man whose presidency and five-decade career was built in part on the idea that he would never interfere with the administration of justice. In 2020, he made the case that former President Donald J. Trump should be ousted from office to restore that kind of independence in America’s democracy, and he argued the same in 2024.
But in his statement, Mr. Biden sought to make the case for interfering after all, accusing his political enemies of going after his son in ways that anyone else would not have been. He said that he still believed in the justice system, but added, “I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice — and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further.”
In fact, the president’s announcement came at the same time that Mr. Trump made it clearer than ever that his second term would be focused on retribution and revenge against Mr. Biden — with Hunter Biden as a prime target. The president-elect on Saturday said he would name Kash Patel, a loyalist who has vowed to go after Mr. Trump’s enemies, as F.B.I. director.
In his statement, Mr. Biden said, “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”
After Mr. Biden announced the pardon, Hunter Biden issued a statement of his own.
“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,” he said. “I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
He expressed relief, but also some bitterness over what he perceived as an unnecessary prosecution, after his father told him he was being pardoned when the family gathered in Nantucket, Mass., for the Thanksgiving holiday, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Many of the president’s allies and critics had expected him to pardon his son, even though he and his spokeswoman had denied for months that he had any intention of doing so. NBC News first reported on Sunday evening that Mr. Biden had in fact decided to issue the pardon, which means his son will face no federal charges stemming from crimes he may have committed during that period.
But the move quickly drew expressions of scorn from Mr. Biden’s political adversaries.
In a post on social media, Mr. Trump called the pardon “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” He brought up the rioters from Jan. 6, 2021, some of whom he has suggested could be pardoned when he takes office.
New York Times
For media advert placement, events coverage, media consultancy, placement of publications and further inquiries please WhatsApp 2348023773039 or email: labakevwe@yahoo.com
Short URL: https://newsrangers.com/?p=130022
Posted by News Rangers
on Dec 2 2024. Filed under International, National.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
