US President Joe Biden issued a “full and unconditional” pardon to his son Hunter Biden, who was expected to be sentenced this month on tax and gun violations. Backtracking on his earlier statement that he would not interfere in the sentencing, Joe Biden said his son was being ‘treated differently’ by his own Justice Department.
In an official statement from the White House on December 2, the US president said, “For my entire career I have followed one simple principle: Just tell the American people the truth. They will be fair. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but I wrestle with it. I also believe that crude politics has infected this process and that it has led to a miscarriage of justice – and as I have decided this weekend, there was no point in delaying it further You will understand why the father and the president come to this decision.
The president’s pardon angered both opponents and allies, with some Democrats on the fence about the decision. US President-elect Donald Trump called the decision a “miscarriage of justice”, while Democrat Governor Jared Polis accused the president of “putting his family above the nation”.
Trump is scheduled to take office as the 47th President of the United States in January, and the question remains – can the Trump administration rescind Hunter Biden’s presidential pardon?
When US presidents revoked amnesty
Because the charges against Hunter Biden were federal in nature, Joe Biden was able to order a broad pardon for his son. The US Constitution gives the president the power to pardon federal charges, but there is no provision in the constitution that allows any president to revoke or reverse a pardon.
However, there is a gray area when it comes to a presidential pardon – it can be revoked if it is not formally delivered.
According to documents from the Congressional Research Service, a United States congressional research institute, then-outgoing President Andrew Johnson pardoned a prisoner in June and incoming President Ulysses S. Grant revoked the pardon, a decision supported by the federal government. the court
An 1869 case report published by the CRS quoted the judge as saying: “The unquestionable law is that when a pardon is complete, there is no power to revoke it, any more than there is power to revoke any other absolute act.”
The case further highlighted that it can be revoked unless condoned.
A more recent example would be that of President George W. Bush, who in 2008 granted a broad pardon to a real estate developer accused of fraud and returned it. Isaac Robert Tousi, who was convicted of making false statements to a government department and of mail fraud, was one of 19 people pardoned by George W. Bush in December 2008.
However, Bush decided to withdraw the pardon a day later after learning that Tucci had donated $30,800 to Republicans, The New York Times reported. Bush’s Justice Department argued that the president was able to revoke the pardon because the recipient “had not received official notice of the president’s action,” the report said.
In both cases, the presidential pardon was revoked due to lack of formal notification of the decision.
Can Hunter Biden’s pardon be reversed?
In 2008, Bush was able to rescind the pardon one day after granting it to Tucci, before it was final.
In the case of Hunter Biden, the new Trump administration will not be able to revoke his pardon because it has already been finalized by the court, Newsweek reported. Biden’s sentencing was scheduled for later this month, but the hearing was ultimately canceled after the court accepted Joe Biden’s pardon.
However, Donald Trump has voiced criticism of the pardon, asking Biden if the same rules would apply to the “January 6 hostages,” referring to Trump supporters who stormed Congress after the 2021 election.