Former first lady Jill Biden claimed in an interview Sunday that former President Joe Biden had no choice but to go back on his word and issue a sweeping pardon to disgraced former first son Hunter Biden after his convictions on federal gun and tax evasion charges.
“The Justice Department changed, and the process was not fair to Hunter,” Jill Biden told CBS News “Sunday Morning” ahead of the release of her memoir, “View from the East Wing.”
“When Trump was elected, things changed,” she went on, “and we knew that he would target Hunter. And we just could not let our son go to jail on a charge that no one would go — I mean, no one has ever gone to jail for.”
Jill Biden declined to say Sunday whether she “urged” her husband to pardon her stepson, telling correspondent Rita Braver: “Oh gosh, I truly supported it. I wanted him to pardon Hunter at that point, and I agreed with Joe.”
Hunter Biden, now 56, was convicted on June 11, 2024, of three counts related to lying about his drug use in order to buy a gun back in 2018. That September, he pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court of dodging $1.4 million in taxes. The charges were brought by his father’s Justice Department in the person of special counsel David Weiss.
Despite Jill Biden’s claims, rapper Kodak Black was notably sentenced to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty in 2019 to providing an incorrect Social Security number on a federal gun purchase form.
Despite the White House’s repeated insistence that Joe Biden would not pardon his son, the 46th president issued a sweeping clemency on Dec. 1, 2024, clearing his offspring of all offenses committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2024, including any crimes for which he had not been charged.
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