Headline Roundup • December 2nd, 2024
Joe Biden Pardons Hunter Biden
Summary from the AllSides News Team
On Sunday, President Joe Biden signed a pardon for his son Hunter after a weekend with his family in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Key Details: In a statement, President Biden announced broad protection for any crimes his son Hunter "committed or may have committed" since January 1, 2014. This comes after a year of the president and his spokespeople saying that he would not pardon Hunter. Members of the Biden family believe that many criticisms of Hunter were meant to cause him to relapse into drug addiction and imperil President Biden's presidency.
Key Quotes: "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," President Biden said in a statement. In a statement from House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), Comer said, “Not only has he {President Biden} 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.”
For Context: Hunter was set to face sentencing for tax and gun crimes in December, with the possibility of facing up to 20 years in prison. President Biden has argued that the indictment was politically charged.
How the Media Covered it: CNN (Lean Left bias) reported that the pardon intensified the "entanglement of politics and the rule of law" and predicted that this entanglement would worsen during President-elect Donald Trump's second term. The Washington Examiner (Lean Right bias) reported that the Department of Justice sat on evidence that Hunter Biden may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act during his international business dealings.
Featured Coverage of this Story
President Biden has privately expressed guilt for years about the investigations and convictions of his son Hunter. Late Sunday night, he tried to lighten that guilt by giving him a broad pardon.
Why it matters: Biden's pardon marks the end of a central drama of his presidency that has both weighed him down and propelled him forward.
Biden knew that being president brought further scrutiny on his son. But Hunter also found purpose and sobriety in his dad's political mission.
Driving the news: Biden signed a pardon Sunday after spending the weekend with his family, including Hunter, in...
AP Photo/Eric Thayer
President Biden’s announcement that he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, rattled the political world late Sunday.
The president argued in a statement on Sunday that the charges brought against his son, which included three felony charges on his purchase and possession of a gun in 2018, came about due to political reasons.
“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,” Biden said.
Reactions from both sides...
President Joe Biden has spent his half-century of political power to liberate his son from the consequences of his infractions, so why would the final full month of the president’s lame duck tenure prove any different? After months of promising he would “abide by the jury’s decision” to eventually convict Hunter Biden of various tax and gun crimes, the Big Guy came through for the First Son on last time before being discarded by the Democratic Party into the ash heap of history. True to form, Joe Biden has pardoned Hunter, absolving the convicted...
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