Pardon Shields Hunter Biden from Foreign Influence Peddling Charges
The pardon window covers a period in which Hunter Biden worked closely with Chinese and Ukrainian interests.
President Joe Biden issued a pardon yesterday evening for his son, Hunter Biden.
The pardon statement justified the action. Biden wrote that he believed his son was "selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted" over an unauthorized firearm purchase and a tax charge. "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 -- and that is wrong,” the president declared.
The order grants Hunter a pardon “for those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”
That eleven-year pardon window extends beyond the period of the crimes prosecuted by the Department of Justice. After all, the illegal firearm purchase was on October 12, 2018. Hunter failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 taxes on time.
Why did the president grant a pardon that covers any crime his son “has committed or may have committed” in 2014?
The dates line up almost with the beginning of Hunter’s stint as a Ukrainian energy firm Burisma board member, a gig that paid him about $1 million per year. He began negotiating for the position in the Spring of 2014 and the official announcement was unveiled in May of that year.
As I’ve previously reported, emails show that almost as soon as he joined the firm, he began discussing plans to influence the Obama administration State Department:
In a May 2014 email, Vadim Pozharskyi, a close adviser to Zlochevsky, explained to Hunter that he needed his “advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message/signal, etc. to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions,” a reference to an ongoing investigation of Zlochevsky by Ukrainian prosecutors.
That month, Pozharskyi again wrote to Hunter, spelling out the “working plan for both FTI and David,” reiterating that he wanted the lobbyists to intervene against the “politically motivated proceedings initiated against us in Ukraine” and to overcome the “US entry ban” for the Burisma owner.