Top Democrat denounces Biden’s pardon of son Hunter

The chair of the House Democratic Caucus on Wednesday denounced President Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, saying the president broke his word to the country that he’d let the justice process play out. 

“As a father, I understand it. And I get it,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told reporters in the Capitol. “But as someone who has spent a lot of time at this podium talking about the importance of respecting the rule of law, it’s disappointing.” 

Aguilar emphasized that he wasn’t speaking on behalf of the entire caucus, whose members had huddled behind closed doors earlier in the morning for the first time since President Biden announced the bombshell pardon on Sunday. But Aguilar condemned the president for reneging on earlier vows not to intervene in his son’s legal proceedings, suggesting it puts Democrats in a tougher spot to criticize President-elect Trump and members of his incoming administration over any future legal infractions or potential meddling with the justice system.  

“The president gave his word,” Aguilar said. “He said publicly that he wasn’t going to give a pardon, and then he did. So that part’s disappointing. 

“I believed him when he said he wasn’t.”

Biden’s pardon, and the fierce backlash from members of both parties, is just the latest chapter in a long and sordid saga involving Hunter Biden, whose legal troubles have dogged his father’s administration since even before President Biden defeated Trump at the polls in 2020.

In June, a jury found Hunter Biden guilty of three felony counts for lying about his drug use on a firearms application. More recently, he pleaded guilty to nine additional felony counts related to avoiding taxes and other financial violations. He was scheduled to be sentenced in both cases later this month. 

President Biden, while still seeking a second term, had said repeatedly that he would not interfere with those cases. But on Sunday he reversed course, granting his son blanket immunity for any crimes committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1 of this year. The president said his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”

“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,” Biden said in a statement.

The move was quickly condemned by Republicans, who accused Biden of abusing his powers at the expense of justice. And that message was echoed by Trump, who is already pointing to the decision as a justification for his own promise to grant clemency to another law-breaking group: the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to nullify Biden’s victory and keep Trump in office. 

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” 

Aguilar is well familiar with the rampage. He was a member of the select House committee that investigated Trump’s role in the attack, concluding that the former president was the driving force behind it and those who participated should face legal consequences.