Former first lady Jill Biden claimed in an interview Sunday that former President Joe Biden had no choice but to go back on his word and issue a sweeping pardon to disgraced former first son Hunter Biden after his convictions on federal gun and tax evasion charges.
“The Justice Department changed, and the process was not fair to Hunter,” Jill Biden told CBS News “Sunday Morning” ahead of the release of her memoir, “View from the East Wing.”
“When Trump was elected, things changed,” she went on, “and we knew that he would target Hunter. And we just could not let our son go to jail on a charge that no one would go — I mean, no one has ever gone to jail for.”
Jill Biden declined to say whether she “urged” her husband to pardon her stepson, telling correspondent Rita Braver: “Oh gosh, I truly supported it. I wanted him to pardon Hunter at that point, and I agreed with Joe.”
Hunter Biden, now 56, was convicted in Delaware on June 11, 2024, of three counts related to lying about his drug use in order to buy a gun back in 2018. That September, he pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court of dodging $1.4 million in taxes.
The charges in both cases were brought by Joe Biden’s Justice Department in the person of special counsel David Weiss after Hunter initially accepted a probation-only plea bargain in June 2023 — only to walk away from that “sweetheart” deal the following month after his attorneys demanded immunity for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which could have implicated father Joe.
Around the same time, IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler alleged a far-reaching Justice Department cover-up that included prosecutors tipping off Hunter’s lawyers to a planned search and barring inquiries into Joe Biden’s role in his son’s overseas financial interests.
Despite Jill Biden’s claims about the gun charges against Hunter, rapper Kodak Black was notably sentenced to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty in 2019 to providing an incorrect Social Security number on a federal gun purchase form.
Despite the White House’s repeated insistence that Joe Biden would not pardon his son, the 46th president issued a sweeping clemency on Dec. 1, 2024, clearing his offspring of all offenses committed since Jan. 1, 2014, and the date of the pardon, including any crimes for which he had not been charged.
Minutes before leaving office on Jan. 20, 2025, Biden issued a pre-emptive pardon to his brothers James and Frank, his sister Valerie and their spouses.
Jill Biden said Sunday that her husband issued those pardons “I suppose for the same reason, that he felt that they would be targeted.”
James Biden had for decades monetized his proximity to power — dating back to Joe Biden’s 36-year Senate tenure — and House Republicans turned up records that he sent $240,000 to Joe Biden in 2017 and 2018 from funds linked to alleged influence peddling, which James said were personal loan repayments.
GOP lawmakers had accused James of lying to Congress and requested criminal charges. They also suggested his dealings may have amounted to illegal unregistered foreign lobbying.
