Hunter Biden now concedes what the rest of the country already knew: the presidential pardon his father handed him was an extraordinary act of privilege. But rather than leave it there, the former first son used a friendly interview to redirect attention toward the Trump administration's use of the same constitutional power, a move that only sharpens the contrast between what the Biden family did and what it now claims to oppose.
In an interview published Tuesday by the liberal outlet MedasTouch, Hunter Biden told interviewer Tommy Christopher that he is "completely biased" about the pardon and acknowledged his unusual position.
"I'm completely biased as it relates to what my dad did for me. I fully understand how uniquely situated I am in being privileged enough to have received a pardon from my father."
That admission would carry more weight if it had arrived without a lengthy attempt to shift the conversation. Instead, Hunter Biden spent much of the interview criticizing the scope of clemency under the current administration, claiming the founders never "imagined Donald Trump" or "the Trump family." He said he was "filled with gratitude" for his own pardon, and then pivoted to arguing that Trump has issued "over 1,500 pardons in the first year alone," compared to what Hunter estimated as roughly 80 pardons his father granted across four years.
The pardon former President Joe Biden issued to his son was not a narrow act of mercy tied to a single conviction. It covered any federal offense Hunter Biden "has committed or may have committed" over a full decade, from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024. That sweeping language went far beyond the two criminal cases that had already reached a courtroom.
In September 2024, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in California to nine federal tax charges tied to a scheme involving more than $1.4 million in unpaid taxes from 2016 to 2019. Three months earlier, in June 2024, a Delaware jury convicted him of lying on a federal form about his drug use to purchase a firearm in 2018.
The pardon's ten-year window also encompassed the period tied to Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings, a fact that National Review noted in highlighting how unusually broad the clemency was. Hunter Biden himself acknowledged in the interview that he believed he could have prevailed through the normal appeals process if political circumstances had been different.
But Joe Biden did not stop with his son. Before leaving office, the former president also issued pardons to his brother James Biden, sister-in-law Sara Biden, sister Valerie Biden, and brother Francis Biden. He defended the family-wide clemency as protection from what he characterized as attacks and threats from Trump.
The former first son's legal and personal troubles have been a recurring feature of the Biden family's public life, and the pardon effectively closed the book on federal accountability for all of them.
Joe Biden publicly ruled out clemency for his son on multiple occasions. The reversal came in the final months of his presidency, and the breadth of the pardon surprised even some Democratic allies at the time.
Hunter Biden now offers an explanation for the about-face. In the MedasTouch interview, he said flatly that his father would not have pardoned him if Trump had not won the 2024 election. The New York Post reported Hunter's claim that Trump's return to power created a "revenge tour" environment that made the Biden family vulnerable.
"My dad would not have pardoned me if President Trump had not won."
He added: "Donald Trump went and changed everything."
That framing asks the public to believe the pardon was a defensive act forced by political circumstances, not a premeditated plan. But the New York Post also reported that former White House chief of staff Jeff Zients testified that Hunter Biden was involved in clemency discussions and attended some meetings before the pardon was issued. If Hunter participated in the conversations that led to his own pardon, the claim that it was a last-minute reaction to Trump's victory becomes harder to sustain.
The ongoing legal disputes surrounding Hunter Biden extend well beyond the federal cases his father's pardon resolved, underscoring just how many fronts the former first son has been fighting on simultaneously.
The Trump administration did not let Hunter Biden's critique go unanswered. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that the president "has exercised his constitutional authority to issue pardons and commutations for a variety of individuals, including those who have been victims of Biden's weaponized justice system."
Jackson went further, drawing a pointed contrast with Joe Biden's record.
"And the only pardons anyone should be critical of are from President Autopen, who pardoned and commuted sentences of violent criminals including child killers and mass murderers, and that's not to mention the proactive pardons he 'signed' for his family members like Hunter on his way out the door."
The Trump administration's pardons have included more than 1,000 individuals prosecuted in connection with the January 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol. Hunter Biden cited that figure and others in attempting to argue that the current administration's use of clemency dwarfs his father's.
Yet the comparison obscures a basic distinction. The January 6 pardons, whatever one thinks of them, applied to people prosecuted under a prior administration's enforcement priorities. Joe Biden's pardon of Hunter applied to his own son, a man convicted and pleading guilty to federal charges while his father occupied the Oval Office. The self-dealing nature of the act is what made it remarkable, not the raw number.
Hunter Biden seemed to sense the awkwardness of his position, conceding at one point that he was "obviously not the one to be, I don't think, fairly or unbiasedly talking about the presidential pardon vote." That moment of candor was brief.
The former first son's gun conviction in Delaware, for lying about drug use on a federal firearms form, touched on a legal question that has since reached the highest levels of the judiciary. The Supreme Court has examined the federal statute barring drug users from firearm ownership, a case with implications that extend well beyond the Biden family.
But Hunter Biden never had to test the appeals process. His father's pardon wiped the slate clean before any sentence was imposed. The tax case in California, involving years of evasion on more than $1.4 million, similarly vanished under the pardon's umbrella.
Trump, for his part, pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, in December 2020. Kushner had served over a year in federal prison for tax evasion, witness retaliation, and campaign finance violations. S1 notes that Trump did not pardon any of his own children during his first administration. The Kushner pardon was a discrete act for a man who had already served his sentence. Joe Biden's pardon of Hunter was prospective, sweeping, and issued before sentencing.
The broader situation surrounding the former president has only added to the sense that the Biden family's final acts in power were designed to insulate its members from consequence.
Hunter Biden says he is filled with gratitude. He says he understands how privileged he is. He says he cannot speak fairly about the pardon power because of his own situation. And then he proceeds to speak about it at length, to criticize the current administration, to blame Trump for forcing his father's hand, and to recast a broken promise as an act of protective necessity.
The facts tell a simpler story. A president pardoned his own son for a decade's worth of potential federal crimes. He pardoned four other family members for good measure. He did so after repeatedly telling the American people he would not. And the son who benefited most now wants to lecture the country about how someone else uses the same power.
You don't need 1,500 pardons to abuse the public's trust. Sometimes one will do, especially when it has your last name on it.
