Biden presidency began with Hunter scandal lies, and ended with broken pardon pledge

Joe Biden began his presidency with a series of lies about his son Hunter’s business dealings: the laptop was Russian disinformation, the family didn’t get China money and the future president never consorted with influence-seeking associates.

And he is ending his tenure in the White House with a stunning broken pledge.

After months of the White House and Joe Biden personally insisting there would be no pardon, the 46th president granted clemency Sunday night to his son that erased his federal gun and tax convictions.

The bookends to a major political scandal left Republicans who investigated tens of millions of dollars in foreign payments to the first family crying anew about a dual system of justice.

“It’s unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability," said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who oversaw a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry that delivered explosive new revelations about the nature of the Biden family grift and systematically proved Joe Biden lied to the American people.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who led the initial probe into Hunter Biden in 2020 only to see it stymied by FBI interference and lies about Hunter Biden’s laptop,  said the pardon was the ultimate exclamation point to a justice system that relentlessly pursued Donald Trump and his associates but often protected Hunter Biden and his friends.

“Just confirming that under Democrat governance, there truly is a dual system of justice, one that protects Democrats and another weaponized against their political opponents,” Johnson wrote on X.

In a statement issued by the White House, Joe Biden argued his son was the victim of a political prosecution, even though it was conducted by a special counsel supervised by the Biden DOJ, secured a gun conviction in the Biden family’s home state of Delaware and resulted in a guilty plea in which Hunter Biden admitted to tax crimes.

“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter," Biden said. "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," Biden added. "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."

You can read the full pardon decree here.

Hunter Biden, 54, was convicted earlier this year by a Delaware jury on gun charges, and then pled guilty to tax charges in California. 

The clemency was a major about-face. The White House had repeatedly said Biden would not pardon his son.

And the president himself answered “yes," when ABC News asked if he would rule out pardoning his son.

In his statement, Biden claimed to have wrestled with the decision.

“For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded,” he said. “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.”

Most Americans are finishing the Biden presidency with a low regard for the president: his approval rating sunk to 37% last month. And voters who took Joe Biden at his word that there were no shenanigans or wrongdoing with his son’s business dealings now believe they were misled and that the president engaged in illegal or unethical conduct.

A poll last year found majority of voters, 61%, believed that Biden had at least some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, with 42% saying they think he acted illegally, and 18% saying that his actions were unethical but not illegal.

But Joe Biden’s repeated lies about his own participation in the scandal – he dined with Hunter’s partners while insisting he didn’t -- and his campaign’s bogus portrayal of Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation in the final days of the 2020 election will likely linger through history as part of his legacy.

“Joe Biden has lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities,” Comer said Sunday night. “Not only has he falsely claimed that he never met with his son’s foreign business associates and that his son did nothing wrong, but he also lied when he said he would not pardon Hunter Biden.

“The charges Hunter faced were just the tip of the iceberg in the blatant corruption that President Biden and the Biden Crime Family have lied about to the American people,” he added.