Hunter Biden asks judges to dismiss criminal cases after pardon
Hunter Biden asked the federal judges overseeing his criminal tax and gun cases to dismiss them after President Biden pardoned his son on Sunday.
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, filed a formal notice of the pardon on both case dockets shortly after the president’s announcement. It also included a sworn declaration signed by Hunter Biden indicating he accepted the pardon.
“Accordingly, dismissal of the Indictment with prejudice and adjourning any future proceedings and entry judgment in this matter is now required,” Lowell wrote to both judges, noting that courts had done the same after previous presidential pardons.
After insisting for months he was ruling it out, the president announced Sunday evening he signed a pardon for his son. The pardon explicitly includes both of Hunter Biden’s pending prosecutions and covers any other offenses against the United States he may have committed since Jan. 1, 2014.
A jury in Delaware found Hunter Biden guilty of three felonies stemming from the president’s son’s 2018 purchase and possession of a revolver while he used drugs. In California, he later pleaded guilty to nine tax charges to avoid trial in the second case brought by special counsel David Weiss.
Hunter Biden’s sentencing hearings were both roughly two weeks away.
“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,” the president wrote in his announcement. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”