Washington:

US President Joe Biden said on Sunday he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of making false statements on a gun background check and illegally possessing a firearm and plead guilty to federal tax charges.

“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,” he said in a statement released by the White House.

The White House had said repeatedly that Biden would not pardon or commute the sentences of his son, a recovering drug addict who became a target of Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump.

“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,” Biden said.

“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.”

Biden said he had made the decision over the weekend. The president, his wife, Jill Biden, and their family including Hunter, spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts and returned to Washington on Saturday night.

“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,” Biden said.

“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Joe Biden’s son Hunter pleaded guilty in his tax evasion trial on Thursday, without reaching the deal he had sought with prosecutors, in a case that has been an embarrassment and a distraction for the US president.

The 54-year-old admitted nine counts related to failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes over the past decade, money that prosecutors said he splurged instead on luxury living, sex workers and a drug habit.

The pleas came on the day jury selection for a trial had been due to start, and hours after Biden had offered to plead guilty in the hope of striking a deal that might keep him out of prison.

But no deal appeared to have materialized and Biden made the pleas in open court, with US District Judge Mark Scarsi cautioning him that he could face a lengthy prison sentence, as well as a fine of up to $1 million.

Scarsi set sentencing for December 16.

A trial had been expected to re-hash sordid details of a life that the defendant and his family — including the president — have long acknowledged had gone off the rails.

Biden has already spent a chunk of 2024 in court, having been convicted in Delaware of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun — a felony.

He has yet to be sentenced for that crime, and could face up to 25 years’ detention.

– Political battle –

Lawyers for Biden have said he was only being brought before the court because of who he is.

“They want to slime him because that is the whole purpose,” Biden’s attorney Mark Geragos reportedly said during an August hearing in which he accused prosecutors of attempted character assassination.

Biden’s defense team has argued that the non-payment of taxes was an oversight in a life wrought chaotic by a spiraling drug addiction and the trauma of losing his older brother, Beau, to a brain tumor in 2015.

Biden has paid the back taxes, as well as penalties levied by authorities, and had previously reached a plea deal that would have kept him out of jail.

That agreement fell apart at the last minute, and Biden is understood to have been trying to reach another ever since.

But that has been difficult for prosecutors whose every move in this election year is being scrutinized by Republicans, who charge the defendant is being treated leniently because he is the president’s son.

Hunter Biden has for years been a foil for his father’s political opponents, who have sought — without producing evidence — to smear the family as a group of criminals who have gained wealth and power because of Joe Biden’s career.

The elder Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race in favor of Kamala Harris has taken much of the zeal out of the Republican drive to make an example out of his son.

Hunter Biden, a Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist who lives in Malibu, has said that he has been drug-free since 2019.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

A judge on Monday denied a bid by U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, to dismiss a federal tax evasion case brought against him in California.

Hunter Biden was convicted in Delaware in June for lying about his illegal drug use to buy a gun, and is scheduled to go to trial in September in the tax evasion case.

Biden, who has pleaded not guilty to the tax charges, had argued that David Weiss, the special counsel leading both prosecutions, was illegally appointed.

The president’s son had relied on a federal judge’s decision dismissing a criminal case accusing former President Donald Trump of illegally retaining classified documents after leaving office.

Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon found the appointment of the special counsel in that case, Jack Smith, violated the U.S. Constitution because Congress had not given him the authority to pursue the case. Smith’s office is appealing.

But U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi in Los Angeles said on Monday there was no valid basis to reconsider a prior order denying Hunter Biden’s bid to throw out the tax evasion indictment.

“The court declines to reach the merits of the motion because there is no valid basis for reconsideration of the court’s order denying Mr. Biden’s motion to dismiss,” the judge wrote.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)