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Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Tuesday, the third of December. I'm Zara, I'm Sam. Yesterday we found out that outgoing US President Joe Biden will pardon his son Hunter, with just a matter of weeks left before there is a peaceful transfer of power. The President said he was pardoning his son because of a miscarriage of justice.
And part of the fun of working in the newsroom is having the TVs on with the rolling twenty four hour news channels. We've got some Australian channels, we've got some overseas channels, and you literally hear a gasp when something big breaks on TV.
That is what happened.
That's what happened with this story yesterday. I want to get into why it was such a big story, but before we do that, give me a sense of who Hunter Biden is.
Yeah, I will just say at the top that I know it's not usual etiquette to refer to a president by their first name, but for the sake of being able to distinguish son from father, I'll refer to President Biden as Joe just once and Hunter as Hunter, just so that we know who are.
To there's a lot of Biden's in this story, there is.
Okay, So we'll start with the personal life of Hunter Biden. So Hunter is the child of Joe and Neelia Biden, and Neelia Biden was Joe Biden's first wife. She tragically died in a car crash, alongside one of the couple's other children, Naomi. Hunter and his brother Bo survived that car crash, and you know, there's been a lot spoken about the impact of that crash on Joe Biden's life and on the way that he has presented himselves, both
personally and of course in his professional life. Bo Biden, who as I said, was the one who survived the crash alongside Hunter. He died of brain cancer in twenty fifteen. So of Joe and Neelia Biden's children, Hunter is the only surviving child. Joe Biden did go on to have another child though, with Jill Biden, who is his current wife.
So that's a bit about Hunter's life growing up. I guess his personal life, and I think it needs to be said that there was a lot of tragedy in the lives of the Biden family, especially the early lives of their family. In his twenty twenty one memoir Beautiful Things, Hunter detailed his history of illicit substance and alcohol use, as well as his mental ill health. Joe Biden has also spoken about his son's addiction. He said, and I'll
just quote it directly here. So many families who have had loved one's battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in their recovery. So that has been quite a big part of how the media has spoken about and considered Hunter Biden in public life. A lot has been written about and been spoken about his battle with addiction.
And not just in the media, also in the political sphere as well.
One hundred percent. So that's him personally. In terms of his professional life, Hunter Biden is a lawyer and a businessman. Early in his career he worked for a financial services company. He then went on to co found a lobbying firm, but he stepped away from that lobbying firm when his dad became the vice presidential pick for Barack Obama.
Okay, so that's about two thousand and seven exactly.
And then more recently, Hunter was on the board of a Chinese equity fund, and the way that came about again has been written about quite extensively because it came about after Hunter Biden met the chief executive of this company when he accompanied Joe Biden on an official visit to China. So he was on the board of a
Chinese equity fund. Then later he was also on the board of a Ukrainian industrial company, and this role has had a lot of focus because at the time, Joe Biden was playing a really significant, almost leading role in the Obama administration's relationship with Ukraine at the same time that his son was sitting on a Ukrainian board.
Okay, so we've talked about the personal life of Hunter Biden, the professional life of Hunter Biden, but the reason he's in the headlines today is he's been pardoned. What was he pardoned from?
Yeah, I mean, it's a good question, and that's I think a good way to set it up. So he was pardoned because he had criminal convictions next to his name. So I'll outline the two sets of charges and the two convictions because they are different. And he's been pardoned from both of them. When I refer to conviction, I'm using that word specifically because in both cases Hunter Biden has had a conviction. They're no longer just charges. He has been convicted of these crimes. So we'll start first
with the charges that relate to guns. So in June, a Delaware jury found that Hunter Biden lied about his personal history of drug use when he bought a gun in twenty eighteen. Now it's illegal in Delaware to buy a gun under the influence of drugs, and this case began back in twenty eighteen when federal prosecutors started investigating him and they found that he had, like during a background check, to purchase a gun in the state. And ultimately, as I said, the jury found that he was guilty.
In that case. The charges carry up to twenty five years imprisonment and around one point one million Australian dollars.
So serious jail time on the line here.
Exactly, And I mean, like, that's what could have happened, not necessarily what would have happened. So after the verdict in the gun case, the lead prosecutor said the combination of guns and drugs made Hunter's conduct dangerous. So giving a bit more color as to why and how this case came about.
So that's case one. Now it's case.
Yeah, So that's the gun case. I'm really simplifying here, but gun case tax case. So in the tax case, Hunter pleaded guilty to this. It was in September of this year, so it didn't end up having to go before a jury because he pleaded guilty. At the time. Prosecutors accused Hunter of spending one point four million US dollars between twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen on quote an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his.
Tax bills, so essentially tax evasion exactly.
And in this case, the judge said that Hunter faces a maximum penalty of fifteen years in prison and again around a million dollars in fines.
So you've got these two cases, the gun case, in the tax case, he was found guilty. In the gun case, he pleaded guilty tax case. So two convictions, two convictions and two quite hefty sentences potentially in front of him. But he hasn't been sentenced saturally the case, right.
No, he hasn't. So he was due to be sentenced for both sets of convictions this month and.
Then and that's where we kind of get to what we're talking about today. Joe Biden intervened, and so yesterday Joe Biden pardoned his son before he could be sentenced. R What does it mean when a president pardons someone?
Yes, So, the ability to pardon people convicted of federal crimes is such a fascinating element of what the US president can do and what powers the US president has. I was going to say he and that would have also been accurate. What he has. It's like they have power to undo a court's decision to find someone guilty, even decades after the fact. It's also a uniquely American thing.
We don't have it in Australia. I turned to you at our desk yesterday and I said, I have a silly question, can this happen in Australia, to which you said no.
Well, it's one of the real quirks of the American system is how intertwined the justice system and the president can be. I mean the president appoints judges as well.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the power, as you just intimated, the power to pardon is granted to the president by the Constitution, and it's a fairly broad power. It is important to note that almost every president has pardoned at least someone one person in their time in office, for better or for worse. We're not going to pass judgment on that. To give you a few examples, Bill Clinton
used the presidential pardon to clear his brother. So his brother Roger had a conviction for cocaine possession and Bill Clinton intervened there. Gerald Ford cleared Richard Nixon's name of corruption, and even George Washington pardoned a few men convict for their role in a rebellion against taxes in the seventeen nineties. So pardoning is not, by any means a new or novel concept. It has been done many, many times before.
And it sounds like there's a variety of reasons why a president would offer a pardon to somebody. Yesterday we got a statement from Joe Biden about why he pardoned Hunter. What did he say?
Yeah, So he said that he was pardoning Hunter because he believed that the Hunter had been treated differently as the president's son, so.
Essentially that the justice system hadn't quite worked.
As right and that it had been biased due to Hunter's family connections to the president. He said, 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 was my son, and that is wrong. 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. The President used the tax case as an example, and he said that that was a really clear case of Hunter Biden being treated differently. He said, those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties are typically given non criminal resolutions, and of course we know that's not what happened in Hunter Biden's case. I do just want to
mention something. Joe Biden had previously said that he wouldn't do this, and I think that's really significant. So Joe Biden had, on various occasions both him and his administration, had made clear that he would not pardon his son.
I remember this coming up as early as the presidential debate when Joe Biden was attempting to win office. This has been a life political issue for many, many years.
Yeah, And I mean, if you'd say it started, then it's been as recently as last month, when the White House Press Secretary was asked explicitly if this would be happening because we know that the term of office is almost up, and she said, We've been asked this question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no. But that was obviously not to be.
And so there are clearly a few times factors here. One is that the sentencing was coming up in a couple of weeks for these cases. The second is that the inauguration for Donald Trump is on January the twentieth. You know, you've got to make sure that there's some runway into that to do the pardons you want to do. One question, though, I think a lot of us have regarding Donald Trump, is whether he can now overturn that party, Whether his arrival into the oval office means that the
whole thing can be reversed. Can that happen?
It's a short answer, and the short answer is no. Right, So pardons can't be reversed. So Joe Biden's decision will stand no matter who is in power. And that's significant because we know that Donald Trump has said a lot about Hunter Biden a lot of the campaign, at least when Joe Biden was his opponent focused on Hunter Biden and Donald Trump really sticking it to Joe Biden about the criminal convictions that his son had. I do just want to end on a tidbit though, which I thought
was interesting. I was looking up who Donald Trump pardoned, just because you know, we have an incoming president and during his time in office, Donald Trump, among others, pardoned Charles Kushner, who is the father of his son in law. Follow me yep with Jared So Jared is married to Ivanka, his daughter and Jared's father. Charles was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. He was pardoned by Donald Trump. It was after the fact, he'd already
served his sentence. It was more just to clear the air. And over the weekend we found out that Donald Trump has now nominated Kushner as the US ambassador to France.
On the note of Donald Trump, it's going to be interesting to see how he responded this. He has a couple of potential pardons on his horizon. There's been a number of convictions of members of his team and himself since he's been in office. Last and that inauguration. As I said is on the twentieth of.
January, exactly right. A really interesting quirk of the US presidential system.
Thanks for that, Zara, and thank you for joining us on the Daily os this morning. We're going to be back in your ears this afternoon with some news headline. But we'd love if you could follow this podcast on Spotify or Apple, give us five stars a rating, send it to a friend. It's those little movements that really help independent media grow. If you're watching on YouTube, click subscribe and we'll see you again later.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcuton woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.