Biden rules out pardoning Hunter if he’s convicted on gun charges
President Joe Biden has revealed he will not pardon his son, Hunter Biden, if he is convicted on felony gun charges.
ABC News’ David Muir asked the president point blank if he would accept the outcome of his son’s trial. “Yes,” the president replied, also telling Muir he would rule out pardoning his son if convicted.
Hunter is currently on trial in Delaware after prosecutors said he unlawfully purchased a firearm by lying on a federal gun form about his drug use. Special counsel David Weiss brought three gun-related charges against Biden last September.
Hunter, who is the first son of a sitting president to face trial, has since pleaded not guilty.
His trial began this week featuring testimony from Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden, who died in 2015 of brain cancer.
Hallie testified that she had a romantic relationship with Hunter from 2015 to 2019. She found the firearm in question and said she saw a “dusting” of drugs in the car where it was found.
Hunter will also go on trial in September in California for nine tax-related criminal charges, three of which are felony counts.
Prosecutors say that the 54-year-old made millions from 2016 to 2020 and spent it on his lavish lifestyle while skipping out on more than $1.4 million in taxes. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In Thursday’s interview, Biden also told ABC News he thinks Trump has attempted to “undermine” the law since his conviction.
“He got a fair trial,” Biden said. “The jury spoke.”
Last week, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of an election conspiracy that involved covering up a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose story of an affair threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.
Biden’s interview with ABC News comes on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, when British, American and Canadian soldiers landed in France and began the fight to liberate Europe. Their efforts would end with the death of Adolf Hitler and the defeat of Nazi Germany.
To commemorate the day, Biden gave a passionate speech to an audience that included dignitaries and nearly three dozen veterans of the battle on Normandy beaches, telling them their battle against fascism endures in the current fight against Russia’s war in Ukraine.