White House says Trump wouldn't 'let go' of Hunter Biden in defending pardon

The White House on Monday defended President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden after insisting for more than a year that he wouldn’t do so.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One that the president made his decision in part because he believed Republicans and President-elect Trump wouldn’t let up on prosecuting his son once the incoming administration took over.

“One of the reasons the president did the pardon is because it didn’t seem like his political opponents would let go of it, it didn’t seem like they would move on. And so, this is why this president took this action,” Jean-Pierre said upon being peppered with questions about Biden’s stark reversal.

Biden made the unexpected announcement of his son’s pardon late Sunday right before taking off for a trip to Angola. Jean-Pierre’s comments were the first time the White House was questioned on the decision.

Jean-Pierre was asked about whether Biden now believed the Justice Department was politicized — an argument Trump made repeatedly when he was battling his own cascade of legal problems that Democrats often criticized him for.

“He believes in the Department of Justice but he also believes that his son was singled out politically and so he made this decision,” Jean-Pierre added.

“The president wrestled with this decision, he made this decision this weekend and he decided to move forward with pardoning his son,” she said.

The president and Hunter Biden were both in Nantucket, Mass., over the weekend to spend Thanksgiving with family; they also went out to lunch together at a local restaurant.

Trump said ahead of the election that if he won he would not rule out pardoning Hunter Biden, saying at the time that he believed the president's son had been politically targeted too.

“I wouldn’t take it off the books. See, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they’ve done to me, where they’ve gone after me so viciously, despite what — and Hunter’s a bad boy. There’s no question about it,” Trump said in October.

Jean-Pierre fielded questions on Monday over why she, as well as Biden and other aides, emphatically insisted for more than a year that the president wouldn’t pardon his son. They had been asked numerous times if a Hunter Biden pardon was being considered, decisively answering “no” on a multitude of occasions.

“He thought about this this weekend, this is a decision that he made this weekend. He agonized over it,” she said. “What he watched his son go through, an unfair process, being singled out.”

The younger Biden was found guilty in June in a federal case on three felony charges over his purchase and possession of a gun in 2018, violating the law by concealing drug use. He pleaded guilty in September to nine federal tax charges, avoiding a trial, and is set to face sentencing in his federal gun case on Dec. 12 and in his tax case on Dec. 16.

Biden, in his statement, argued his son was “treated differently,” saying most people in his situation would not face felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun purchase form and that those who pay back their taxes with interest and penalties are usually given “non-criminal resolutions."

Updated at 12:51 p.m. EST