after months of denials President Joe Biden has abruptly reversed course and offered a sweeping pardon to his son Hunter the move comes just days before the younger Biden was sentenced uh was set to be sentenced on federal gun and tax charges Douglas Zer has more from Capitol Hill this morning dou good morning good morning and Joe Biden is not the first president to have a controversial pardon at the very end of his presidency nevertheless this one is going to get a lot of scrutiny President Biden boarded Air Force One Last Night ignoring questions about his
pardon for his son he had just dropped that bombshell before leaving the country for Africa and have you ruled out a pardon for your son yes but that was back in June when Biden was still running for a second term for months he never equivocated and his press secretary even grew impatient with the question is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son no is I just said no I just answered go ahead go ahead but after repeatedly saying he trusted the process that found his son Hunter guilty on federal tax
and gun charges Biden issued a statement seeming to indict his own justice department yesterday writing raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of Justice I think he wanted to issue it now um so that it would come before sentencing I think that the political hit would have been even more severe if the judges as everyone expected sentenced Hunter B him to serve hard time the president-elect Trump referenced his supporters who stormed the capital back in 2021 when he responded on Truth social last night does the pardon given by Joe to
Hunter include the j6 hostages who have now been imprisoned for years such an abuse and miscarriage of justice and some of Trump's most vocal critics lashed out at Biden Donald Trump lies every time he opens his mouth we've been screaming Joe Biden repeatedly lied about this now what is striking about this pardon you know beyond the fact that it's for a family member is that it is sweeping it is not just related to the charges that Biden that Hunter Biden faced on on on gun and um attx issues it's for any federal crime he may
have committed over almost 11year period even things that we may not be aware of back to you guys right 11 years which goes back to when the president was then vice president so it sort of insulates Hunter Biden from any future prosecutions uh for anything that may anything any criminality that may have happened that they've investigated uh new investigations it goes back to the time that Hunter Biden began working for the controversial time that he worked for barisma I mean that seems to be the date that this thing is pegged at back in 2014 and
then goes until like midnight last night right like goes yeah so I mean it it actually went a few hours into the future uh for for Biden uh you know which kind of you know he he could have done something last night for instance and still been covered by the U by the dates of this spon all right uh no doubt he's going to be facing more questions uh during the uh final weeks of uh his administration uh Doug L live for us in Washington we appreciate it Doug thank you thank you
