(NewsNation) — On Sunday, President Joe Biden issued a pardon for his son Hunter after previously saying he would not. Biden, who reversed course as he prepares to leave the White House, has become the latest U.S. president to pardon a family member.
In his clemency announcement, the president called his son’s treatment a “miscarriage of justice” and pointed to political motivation behind his son’s 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,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House.
With Sunday’s announcement, Biden became only the third president to make such a declaration for a relative. But other notable personalities have been granted pardons throughout history as former U.S. presidents have used their authority to issue pardons.
Hunter Biden pardoned by his father
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges in September, three months after he was convicted in a separate gun trial in June.
After Biden was found guilty of the tax charges, the White House remained adamant that the president would not issue a pardon for his son. Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced on the criminal charges more than a month before President-elect Donald Trump begins his second term in the White House.
In the statement issued on Sunday, President Biden said that he wrestled with his decision but said that “raw politics” had infected the judicial process and led to a miscarriage of justice. Hunter Biden was facing up to 17 years in prison and up to a $450,000 fine for the tax charges and up to 25 years in prison for the felony gun charges.
The president’s sweeping pardon covers not just the gun and tax offenses against the younger Biden, but also any other “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.”
In response, Trump called Biden’s decision “an abuse and miscarriage of justice” and questioned on Truth Social whether the pardon would be extended to those who had been convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riots.
Donald Trump pardons his in-law
Trump, who will be inaugurated on Jan. 20 after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in November, issued several presidential pardons at the end of his first term, including one to the father of his son-in-law.
Charles Kushner, whom Trump nominated as his Ambassador to France, is the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared. In a social media post, Trump referred to the elder Kushner — a real estate developer — as a “tremendous business leader, philanthropist and dealmaker.”
Trump pardoned Charles Kushner in 2020 after Kushner had pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges and to making illegal campaign donations.
According to reports, Charles Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law, then arranged to have the encounter in a New Jersey motel room recorded with a hidden camera and the recording sent to his sister, the man’s wife, prosecutors said.
Kushner eventually pleaded guilty to 18 counts including tax evasion and witness tampering, the Associated Press reported. He was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison — the most he could receive under a plea deal, but less than what Chris Christie, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey at the time and later governor and Republican presidential candidate, had sought.
Bill Clinton pardons half-brother
In 2001, President Bill Clinton issued a pardon for his half-brother, Roger Clinton, who had previously been convicted of drug-related charges.
The pardon came on Clinton’s final day in office on Jan. 20, 2001.
Roger Clinton, the son of Bill Clinton’s mother, Virginia Dell Kelly, and his stepfather, pleaded guilty in 1985 to selling cocaine to an undercover police officer in Arkansas, the Washington Post reported. Roger Clinton spent a year in prison, but the presidential pardon cleared his criminal record, the Post reported.
The report also indicated that Roger Clinton had provided President Clinton with a list of people to pardon but had not paid to make the recommendations. Those listed were not included in those whom Bill Clinton issued pardoned.
Other notable presidential pardons and grants of clemency
Richard Nixon
The former president who became embroiled in scandal during Watergate was issued a pre-emptive pardon by President Gerald Ford despite never being charged or convicted of federal crimes.
Nixon and several of his aides were found to have committed illegal activities during Nixon’s bid for re-election in 1972. Nixon, who was also accused of covering up the scandal that was brought to light by two Washington Post reporters, became the first U.S. president to resign as impeachment hearings against him were ongoing.
After Nixon left office on Aug. 9, 1974, Ford was sworn into office and became the 38th president of the United States.
Ford was immediately asked about Nixon’s actions and began to ask White House counsel Phil Buchen to look into the legal precedent of pardoning a former president, according to The Ford Museum Library. On Sept. 8, 1974, Ford addressed the nation from the Oval Office and announced his decision to issue a “full, free, and absolute pardon for Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States.” The pardon included offenses that Nixon committed or may have committed.
Jimmy Hoffa
Hoffa, the former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, was serving a 13-year prison sentence when his sentence was commuted by Nixon in 1971.
Nixon commuted Hoffa’s sentence after the former union boss had served four years and nine months in prison, after having been sentenced to eight years for jury tampering and five years for pension fund fraud, the Washington Post reported. While technically not a pardon, which would have cleared his criminal record, Hoffa commutation allowed him to leave prison early.
Years later, rumors surfaced that Nixon received a big cash payoff from Hoffa. The Arizona Republic reported in 1979 that Hoffa paid Nixon $500,000 for his release, the Washington Post reported. However, FBI sources told the newspaper that a 19-page diary that included word of the payoff had been fabricated.
Patty Hearst
The granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Rudolph Hearst was reportedly kidnapped at the hands of a radical guerrilla group that called itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. However, she then said that she had voluntarily joined the group and was later involved in a bank robbery.
Hearst was photographed with an assault rifle during the robbery of the San Francisco bank and later claimed in court that she had been brainwashed and assaulted while being held. President Jimmy Carter commuted Hearst’s seven-year prison sentence after she was convicted of bank robbery charges in 1976.
She was freed from jail and later received a full pardon from Clinton in 2001.
Like with Roger Clinton, Hearst received the full pardon hours before Bill Clinton left office. Hearst, who served just seven months of her prison sentence before Carter commuted the sentence, had her right to vote and hold public office reinstated. However, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the pardon did not expunge her criminal conviction.
