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The gun case federal prosecutors brought against Hunter Biden was relatively rare, but the tax charges he pleaded guilty to may have been less unusual.
- Dec. 2, 2024, 4:43 p.m. ET
President Biden’s fiery statement on Sunday announcing his son’s pardon included an eye-opening assertion: that Hunter Biden’s prosecutions on gun and tax charges were the product of political pressure, not the evenhanded administration of justice.
“It is clear that Hunter was treated differently,” he wrote. “The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.”
The Bidens, their lawyers and their defenders have leveled that accusation against the president’s own appointees at the Justice Department since the summer of 2023, when a plea deal that would have granted Hunter Biden the broad immunity collapsed — leading to the two indictments, and the likelihood he would face significant prison time.
After the pardon announcement, Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under President Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden, wrote in a social media post that no U.S. attorney “would have charged this case given the underlying facts,” and that “Had his name been Joe Smith, the resolution would have been — fundamentally and more fairly — a declination” to prosecute.
U.S. prosecutors have broad discretion when deciding whether to bring cases and are governed by departmental guidelines. But such decisions are subject to a wide range of factors that determine whether they opt to charge, to seek an agreement or to drop the matter altogether, even when there is some evidence of criminality.
The prosecution of the younger Mr. Biden on gun charges was relatively rare. Few people fitting his profile — a first-time, nonviolent offender accused of lying on a federal firearms application, who never used the gun to commit a crime — get serious prison time for the offenses charged in the indictment, according to former and current officials. He held onto the gun, a Colt Cobra .38, for less than two weeks, five years ago.
