Shocking Trend: Biden Joins Trump and Clinton in Pardoning Relatives – What’s Really Going On?

Although pardons are typically granted by US presidents as they step down, Joe Biden’s “full and unconditional” pardon of his son Hunter is an unusual example involving a family member. On January 20, 2001, Bill Clinton’s final day in office, he pardoned his half-brother Roger, who had been imprisoned for cocaine offenses in 1985. At the conclusion of his first term in office, Donald Trump also pardoned Charles Kushner, a fellow real estate tycoon whose son Jared is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

The 70-year-old Kushner, who entered a guilty plea in 2004 to tax evasion, witness tampering, and unlawful campaign contributions, was nominated by Trump, the current president-elect, on Saturday to serve as the next US ambassador to France. After serving 14 months in prison, Kushner said that he had hired a prostitute to woo his brother-in-law, who was assisting with the campaign finance investigation, and that he had sent his own sister a recording of the meeting.

The first child of a serving president to be pardoned is Hunter Biden, who has battled drug and alcohol addiction. In announcing the decision on Sunday, his father, who steps down on January 20, stated that Hunter had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.” He had previously stated that he would not pardon his son. “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,” Biden stated. “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,” stated the president.

In September, Hunter Biden entered a guilty plea to tax evasion, which carried a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison. He was not anticipated to receive such severe penalties in each case, but he ran the risk of 25 years in jail for the felony firearms charge. Over the years, presidents have also pardoned close friends and political allies using their constitutionally mandated pardon powers. The pardon of former President Richard Nixon by his successor, Gerald Ford, was one of the most contentious in recent years.

On September 8, 1974, Ford gave Nixon a “full and unconditional” pardon despite the possibility that he would be prosecuted for the Watergate affair.  Since the case featured state charges rather than federal ones, Trump will not be able to pardon himself despite being the first former president to be found guilty of a crime—faking company records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star.