US President Joe Biden pardons son Hunter despite pledging not to

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Outgoing US president says his son was ‘selectively’ and ‘unfairly’ prosecuted due to his family name.

United States President Joe Biden has pardoned his son Hunter ahead of his sentencing on gun and tax convictions despite a previous pledge not to use his presidential powers to grant him a reprieve.

Biden said on Sunday that his son had been “singled out” and “selectively, and unfairly” prosecuted due to his family name.

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

“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’s decision comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to face sentencing for a string of felonies related to making a false statement about his drug use during a gun background check and failing to pay at least $1.4m in taxes.

The younger Biden had faced a maximum of 25 years in prison in the tax case and 17 years in the firearms case, though he would have almost certainly received much less severe punishment under sentencing guidelines.

In justifying his decision, Biden said that people are “almost never” brought to trial for wrongly filling out a gun purchase form and that those who pay their taxes late usually receive “non-criminal resolutions”.

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

In June, Biden had flatly ruled out the possibility of granting his son a pardon or commuting his sentence.

“I said I will abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him,” Biden had said.

The White House had reiterated Biden’s intention not to pardon his son as recently as November 8, when press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “Our answer stands, which is no.”