A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Biden changing his mind - he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The president issued the full and unconditional pardon seven weeks before he leaves office, and after the president previously said he would not do this.
MARTÍNEZ: For more, we're joined now by NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. So Ryan, what does this pardon cover?
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: So this is - as was said at the top, it's a full and unconditional pardon for offenses Hunter Biden has committed or may have committed from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024 - so yesterday. Specifically, that includes the two cases brought against Hunter Biden by Justice Department special counsel David Weiss. In one of those cases, a jury in Delaware convicted Hunter of lying on a federal background check form about his addiction to crack cocaine when he bought a gun in 2018. And in the other, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. Sentencing in both of those cases was scheduled for later this month. He could have faced prison time, but now, of course, he has been pardoned.
MARTÍNEZ: So what's the explanation for this? What has President Biden said?
LUCAS: So in a statement put out last night by the White House, President Biden did explain his thinking here. And what he said is that when he took office, he promised not to meddle or interfere with the Justice Department. And he says that he kept his word on that - even as his son, he says, was, quote, "being selectively and unfairly prosecuted." President Biden says Hunter was charged only after Republicans in Congress, he says, instigated the prosecutions to try to hurt the president politically. And he says any reasonable person would look at the facts of these legal cases and conclude that Hunter was unfairly singled out.
Now, President Biden said he believes in the justice system. But he also believes that what he calls raw politics infected the process in this instance and led to what he called a miscarriage of justice. So he made this decision to pardon his son. And Biden ended by saying that he hopes that Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.
MARTÍNEZ: Any word from Hunter Biden about this?
LUCAS: Yeah. He put out a statement last night, too, in which he says that he has admitted and taken responsibility for mistakes that he made when he was struggling with addiction. He says that those mistakes have been used to publicly humiliate him, to publicly humiliate his family - he says for political sport. But he says that he has been sober now for more than five years, despite those challenges, and he said he will not take this clemency here for granted. He said he'll devote the life that he has now - the one that he has rebuilt since his recovery from addiction - to help those who are still sick and still suffering.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, President-elect Donald Trump has criticized Hunter Biden over his business dealings, and also his personal dealings and his legal trouble. So how has President-elect Trump responded to this pardon?
LUCAS: Well, certainly not positively. President-elect Trump put out a short post on social media, in which he asked whether the pardon includes what he calls January 6 hostages. That's what he calls his supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. More than 1,200 have either pled guilty or been convicted at federal trial in connection with that attack. Trump has vowed to pardon them. It's also worth pointing out that Trump himself has faced criticism for pardons that he doled out to several political allies and friends in his first term. That includes his one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort, Republican operative Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon and Charles Kushner - the father of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. Charles Kushner, by the way, Trump has selected to be the next ambassador to France in the President-elect's incoming administration.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. Ryan, thanks.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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