Credit: White House
In a blistering rebuke, a federal judge has openly questioned the constitutionality of President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, calling it an overreach of executive power aimed at rewriting history and undermining the integrity of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
On December 1, 2024, Joe Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon to his embattled son, Hunter Biden, who faced charges of tax evasion and corruption. The pardon, however, quickly drew ire for its timing and the breadth of its language.
Statement from Joe Biden:
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.
Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form.
Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.
The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.
Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.
No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong.
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. 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.
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. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.
Hunter Biden provided notice of the pardon through a hyperlink to a White House press release rather than a certified document. This unusual approach drew the court’s ire.
Federal Judge Mark Scarsi
Federal Judge Mark Scarsi, presiding over the case in the Central District of California, did not mince words in a court order issued shortly after Hunter Biden’s legal team submitted the pardon notice.
The court’s order highlighted that the presidential statement accompanying the pardon presented a narrative conflicting with the judicial record, particularly claims that Hunter Biden was treated unfairly due to his familial ties and addiction issues, which the court found misrepresented.
Scarsi also noted that the pardon’s presentation and its claims stand in stark contrast to the established facts of the case, including Hunter Biden’s own admissions of guilt regarding tax evasion and misuse of funds for personal expenses.
“The President asserts that Mr. Biden “was treated differently” from others “who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions,” implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction. But he is not. In his pretrial filings, Mr. Biden represented that he “was severely addicted to alcohol and drugs” “through May 2019.”
Upon pleading guilty to the charges in this case, Mr. Biden admitted that he engaged in tax evasion after this period of addiction by wrongfully deducting as business expenses items he knew were personal expenses, including luxury clothing, escort services, and his daughter’s law school tuition.
And Mr. Biden admitted that he “had sufficient funds available to him to pay some or all of his outstanding taxes when they were due,” but that he did not make payments toward his tax liabilities even “well after he had regained his sobriety,” instead electing to “spen[d] large sums to maintain his lifestyle” in 2020.
The judge’s order pointed out that while the U.S. Constitution grants the president broad powers to issue pardons, it does not empower him to rewrite historical facts or the conduct for which the pardon was granted.
The court also questioned the authenticity of the pardon document itself, noting that it was not substantiated by an appropriate declaration verifying its accuracy and legality.
“In short, a press release is not a pardon. The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.
Although Mr. Biden attached a purported copy of the pardon to a subsequent filing, the copy is not substantiated by an authenticating declaration, so the Court is left to assume it is a true and correct copy of the clemency warrant.”
The order also criticized the executive overreach, suggesting that the pardon was used as a tool to sidestep the judicial process and protect personal interests at the expense of legal and governmental integrity.
The court’s document asserted that such actions by the executive could set a dangerous precedent, undermining the rule of law and the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution.
Read the court order below:
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