Special Counsel Dave Weiss’s prosecutors objected to Joe Biden’s decision to pardon Hunter Biden.
On Sunday, Joe Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon to his son, Hunter Biden, absolving him of any federal crimes committed between 2014 and 2024.
Hunter was facing federal tax fraud charges in California and felony gun charges in Delaware.
Joe Biden blasted the special counsel and accused his prosecutors of being motivated by politics even though Hunter Biden committed numerous crimes.
Joe Biden’s full statement on the Hunter pardon:
Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.
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. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.
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. 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.
For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, 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. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.
Weiss’s prosecutors asked the judge overseeing Hunter’s tax evasion case in California not to dismiss the charges, but to just close the docket.
The federal prosecutors defended their work and said several judges rejected Hunter’s lawyers claims of vindictive prosecution.
“In total, eleven different [federal] judges appointed by six different presidents, including his father, considered and rejected the defendant’s claims, including his claims for selective and vindictive prosecution,” Weiss’s prosecutor wrote in a court filing on Monday, according to ABC News.
Weiss’s office said the grand jury’s decision to charge Hunter should not be wiped away “as if if never occurred.”
“The government does not challenge that the defendant has been the recipient of an act of mercy. But that does not mean the grand jury’s decision to charge him, based on a finding of probable cause, should be wiped away as if it never occurred,” Weiss’s prosecutor wrote. “It also does not mean that his charges should be wiped away because the defendant falsely claimed that the charges were the result of some improper motive.”
