Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Sunday before jetting off on a trip to Africa, signing the pardon despite repeated pledges “not to interfere” with the DoJ’s work.

Hunter Biden, the first child of a sitting US president ever to be criminally charged and convicted, was found guilty of two counts of willful tax evasion, and a separate charge related to lying about his illegal drug use while purchasing a handgun.

He was to be sentenced in both cases in mid-December before Sunday’s surprise pardon by his dad clearing the 54-year-old of legal responsibility for the crimes. The maximum penalty in the tax case was 17 years, while the gun charge carried a punishment of up to 25 years behind bars.

Along with the criminal tax charges, Hunter also faced six misdemeanor tax offenses, including failing to pay his taxes on time and making false business deductions in returns.

Through the course of the criminal investigations and trials into Hunter Biden, some observers have been peeved about the Justice Department’s focus on comparatively trivial tax and gun charges instead of potentially far more serious crimes.

Representative James Comer, chairman of a House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family over suspicious business activities revolving around an pay-to-play corruption scheme by Hunter which allegedly saw the collection of over $20 million in bribes to secure access to his powerful father during the Obama years, hinted as much in his reaction to Sunday’s pardon.

“Joe Biden has lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities. 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,” Comer said.

In August 2024, Comer’s investigators released a damning 300-page report detailing “impeachable conduct” by the president and alleged criminal activity by his son. This included allegations related to Hunter Biden’s lucrative no-show job on the board of a Ukrainian energy company beginning in 2014 (which culminated in the post-coup government’s firing of a local prosecutor investigating suspected money-laundering activity), and charges of similar pay-to-play schemes involving corrupt business dealings with actors across Eurasia.

Source: Sputnik International. See also: The Laptop from Hell.

Header image is courtesy of Getty Images, cropped and slightly enhanced by me.