Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on 3 December 2024 after Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden. It was republished on 21 January 2025, after Biden, in one of his last acts as president, issued pre-emptive blanket pardons to family members, including his brother James Biden; James’s wife, Sara Jones Biden; his younger sister, Valerie Biden Owens; Valerie’s husband, John T Owens; and his younger brother, Francis W Biden. He also issued pardons for members of committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack, the former chair of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley, as well as former chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney. Like the Hunter Biden pardon before it, the January pardons drew criticism from across the political spectrum.
When Hunter Biden was convicted of federal gun charges this summer, his father, US president Joe Biden, vowed to respect the jury’s verdict. “I said I’d abide by the jury decision, and I will do that,” he said at the G7 summit in Italy on 13 June. “I will not pardon him.” After the younger Biden pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in a separate case in September, his father’s aides continued to insist that the president had no intention of pardoning him. “We’ve been asked that question multiple times,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters when asked about the possibility of a pardon on 7 November. “Our answer stands, which is no.”
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