Hunter Biden's pardon shows rulebook being rewritten
Joe Biden had repeatedly denied that he was going to pardon his son Hunter for his gun and tax evasion convictions or commute what was shaping up to be a substantive prison sentence.
On the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving – at a moment when the American public’s attention was decidedly elsewhere – he announced he had changed his mind.
“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,” he wrote in a press statement announcing his decision. “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.”
The president’s explanation might sound familiar to anyone who has listened to Donald Trump rail against America’s system of justice in recent years.
Trump, as he exited the White House in 2021, issued a series of pardons for his close associates and allies who had been swept up in the multiple criminal investigations that encircled him throughout his presidential term. In doing so, he bypassed established White House procedures for exercising the broad presidential pardon power. And although he was criticised for the action at the time, there were little if any political consequences.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gplr65prno