Hunter Biden Pardon Starting From 2014 Raises Burisma Questions

A number of Joe Biden critics have questioned why the president’s pardoning of his son Hunter Biden goes back to 2014.

President Biden announced on Sunday that he signed a full and unconditional pardon for his son over federal tax and gun crimes, for which Hunter Biden was due to be sentenced this month. The pardon covers offenses he “has committed or may have committed or taken part in” between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024.

Several MAGA figures have noted that 2014 is the year the younger Biden joined the board at Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Republicans have frequently accused Biden of personally benefiting from and influencing his son’s foreign business deals in Ukraine and China while he was vice president. Both the White House and Hunter Biden’s lawyers have refuted these claims.

House Republicans tried to impeach Biden over claims of corruption, but did not produce any meaningful evidence to back up the allegations.

Right-wing political commentator Liz Wheeler suggested the president was also pardoning his son for alleged crimes committed during his time at Burisma. Wheeler also suggested that President Biden issued the pardon because he is “protecting himself from Kash Patel,” the Donald Trump loyalist whom the president-elect has tapped to be the next FBI director.

“Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma in 2014. By pardoning Hunter for any crimes he ‘may have committed’ from 2014 to 2024, Joe Biden is protecting his family’s criminal cartel. Wow, this pardon isn’t about the gun charge,” Wheeler posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday.

Newsweek has contacted the White House and Hunter Biden’s lawyers for comment via email outside of regular office hours.

Reacting to the pardon, Steven Chung, Trump’s communications director, told Newsweek: “The failed witch hunts against President Trump have proven that the Democrat-controlled DOJ and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system.

“That system of justice must be fixed and due process must be restored for all Americans, which is exactly what President Trump will do as he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people.”

During the campaign, Trump had said that he would use his second term to investigate and prosecute members of the Biden family.

Several other conservative figures have questioned why Hunter Biden’s pardon goes back to 2014.

Jack Posobiec, a conservative commentator known for helping spread the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, posted: “Hold on a second. The Hunter pardon covers ANY offenses he committed from 2014 to 2024. What the funk? Never seen anything like this. Completely lawless administration.”

Nick Sortor, an independent journalist who regularly appears on right-wing news outlets and podcasts, wrote: “Joe Biden’s pardon for Hunter covers ANY AND ALL illegal dealings he had with Burisma and Ukraine from the past 11 YEARS. Hunter just got away with some of the highest levels of corruption we’ve EVER seen in the U.S. government.”

Greg Price, a Trump 2024 campaign staffer, added: “Truly incredible that Joe Biden pardoned Hunter starting in 2014—the year he was appointed a board member of Burisma. You can’t make it up.”

In a statement announcing the pardon, President Biden said the prosecutions against his son were politically motivated and that Hunter Biden was “treated differently.”

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son—and that is wrong,” President Biden said. “There has been an effort to break Hunter—who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Hunter Biden was found guilty by a Delaware jury in June of illegally buying a gun while using drugs and lying on a government form about his drug use when he made the purchase in May 2018.

Hunter Biden, who became the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime, denied the charges. He said he was not an active drug user at the time he purchased the firearm, as he had recently undergone a stint in rehab.

In September, he pleaded guilty to failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019.

Hunter Biden faced a maximum of 17 years in prison over the tax charges when he was scheduled to be sentenced on December 16, and up to 25 years in prison for his gun charges at the planned December 12 sentencing. Experts had suggested he would not have received the maximum sentence in either case.

Biden previously stated he would not pardon his son before he leaves office in January.

“For my entire career, I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded,” Biden said in his statement.

“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. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

Trump issued numerous pardons to his allies just before he left the White House in January 2021.

Among them were for his longtime ally Roger Stone, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner.