U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden days before his scheduled sentencing on gun-possession and tax-related charges, despite having repeatedly said he would not do so.
The sweeping pardon announced on December 1 exonerates Hunter Biden, 54, from any crime he may have committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024.
That period includes Hunter Biden's controversial stint as a board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, a role that was a touchstone for Republican criticism of Joe Biden and was at the heart of the first of two impeachments of Donald Trump, the former president who will return to the White House in January.
Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma in May 2014, less than three months after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power and fled to Russia in the culmination of the massive, monthslong Euromaidan protests over official corruption and his decision to scrap plans for a trade agreement with the European Union and pursue closer ties with Moscow.
Hunter Biden's business partner, Devon Archer, had joined a month earlier, when the U.K. froze a Burisma bank account holding $23 million amid suspicion of money laundering.
At the time, Joe Biden was the U.S. vice president and President Barack Obama's point man for Ukraine, which was battling Russian and Russian-backed forces in a war fomented by Moscow in the eastern Donbas region following Yanukovych's departure. Russia had also seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
Burisma's owner, Mykola Zlochevskiy, a former environment and natural resources minister, was under investigation for corruption, accused of having used his position to acquire lucrative gas fields.
Hunter Biden had no background in the energy industry, sparking speculation he was hired to provide political cover for Burisma and its owner. The United States and its allies were in the process of placing sanctions on former officials in Yanukovych's government who were believed to have enriched themselves.
Hunter Biden was paid as much as $50,000 a month, a large amount by U.S. standards. Board members of Apple and Meta, two of the biggest companies in the world, were receiving on average about $30,000 a month at the time. Biden said he never spoke with his son about his work, including Burisma.
In 2016, Biden threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine if the government did not dismiss its prosecutor-general, who was widely considered to be hindering corruption investigations. Ahead of the 2020 election, Republicans cast that threat as an attempt by Biden to hinder an investigation into Burisma, without providing any evidence.
Overall, Republicans accused Democrat Joe Biden of peddling influence overseas and his son of violating the U.S Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires individuals lobbying the U.S. government on the behalf of a foreign state to register with the Justice Department.
Hunter Biden served on the Burisma board until April 2019, when his father announced he would challenge then-President Trump in the 2020 election. Trump soon began targeting Hunter Biden's work in Ukraine, and the issue roiled U.S.-Ukrainian relations just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy took office after his election in April 2019.
During a phone call that July, Trump asked Zelenskiy to look into the Bidens' activities in Ukraine.
The call led to accusations that Trump had conditioned the release of nearly $400 million in military aid on an investigation into the Bidens, and Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives in December 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted Trump on both charges in February 2020.
Joe Biden defeated Trump in the November 2020 presidential election, but Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 vote last month and will take office again on January 20.
The controversy surrounding Burisma was an unfortunate development for Ukraine, serving only to reinforce its image in the United States as a corrupt state, Oleksandr Krayev, an analyst at Ukrainian Prism, a Kyiv-based think tank, told RFE/RL.
"Ukraine was secondary to Hunter Biden's story, [but] we looked like a small corrupt state where evil companies and golden youth launder their money," Krayev said.
U.S. presidents frequently pardon a number of nonviolent criminals or commute their sentences shortly before leaving office. But Biden's broad pardon of his son has fueled criticism from Republicans and rankled some supporters who say he is undermining Americans' faith in the judicial system.
It has also been criticized in foreign countries, including Ukraine, given the emphasis the United States has placed on the importance of an independent judiciary free of intervention.
"This example is disappointing. Practice what you preach," Daria Kalenyuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, told RFE/RL. "Such actions provide Russia and other authoritarian regimes with additional opportunities for propaganda. This is especially harmful in the context of war, when Russia is actively trying to discredit Western democracies and their values."
Hunter Biden had been due to be sentenced on December 12 and 16 in two separate cases. In June, he was found guilty of lying about his drug addiction on a government form required to obtain firearms. Then, in September, he pleaded guilty to falsifying his tax returns and paying his taxes late.
While he faced more than a decade in prison, as a first-time, nonviolent offender, he was likely to serve a few years at most and might have avoided prison altogether, legal experts say.
In announcing the pardon, Biden accused his Republican opponents of targeting him and his son and expressed concern that this would continue after Trump takes office.
"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," Biden said in a statement.
Whether the incoming Trump administration will seek to pursue an investigation related to Burisma is unclear. Trump said last year that he will name a special counsel to probe the Biden family, though he gave no details about who might be investigated on what possible charges.
The pardon does not prevent the Trump administration from pursuing an investigation, but Hunter Biden could ask a court to dismiss any charges, pointing to his broad clemency, experts say.
