President Biden didn't merely pardon son Hunter for his federal criminal convictions. The president bestowed on him a "full and unconditional pardon" for any federal crime Hunter may have committed over the past decade. The BBC notes that it is a "particularly broad" pardon compared to, say, the one President Clinton gave his brother Roger for a 1985 drug conviction. In fact, an analysis at Politico suggests the US has not seen a pardon this sweeping since the one President Ford gave Richard Nixon after the latter resigned.
"I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon," says Margaret Love, who served in the 1990s as the US pardon attorney, an office devoted to helping presidents with clemency issues. "Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned," she says.
The president's move absolves Hunter Biden from federal crimes from Jan. 1, 2014—the day he joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, while his father was vice president—through this past Sunday. President-elect Trump will not be able reverse the pardon upon taking office, and Axios notes Trump previously had not ruled out the possibility of pardoning Hunter Biden himself. Trump's own record of family-related pardons surfaced last week when he nominated Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law, to be ambassador to France. In his first term, Trump pardoned the elder Kushner for tax evasion. (More President Biden stories.)
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