Hunter Biden stepped into a firestorm of his own making this week, publicly questioning President Donald Trump’s use of the presidential pardon power — despite being one of the most high-profile pardon recipients in modern American history.
During a sit-down interview with MeidasTouch, the 55-year-old son of former President Joe Biden took direct aim at Trump’s clemency record while simultaneously conceding the obvious contradiction in doing so.
“I’m completely biased as it relates to what my dad did for me,” Hunter Biden told the outlet.
He did not stop there.
“I fully understand how uniquely situated I am in being privileged enough to have received a pardon from my father,” he added.
The admission came in direct response to a question about whether the presidential pardon system is in need of structural reform — a question Hunter Biden answered while conspicuously declining to offer a single concrete policy suggestion.
Instead, he trained his sights on the Trump family.
“I don’t think that the founders ever imagined Donald Trump. I don’t think they ever imagined the Trump family,” Hunter Biden said.
His father, the 46th president of the United States, granted Hunter a sweeping “full and unconditional pardon” before departing the White House — a document covering any federal offenses Hunter may have committed across an nearly eleven-year stretch, from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.
That decade-plus window is no accident. It encompasses the years Hunter sat on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, as well as the period during which he committed the offenses that led to two separate federal convictions.
A jury found Hunter Biden guilty in June 2024 on charges of illegally possessing a firearm while addicted to controlled substances. He then entered a guilty plea three months later on federal tax charges, admitting to withholding roughly $1.4 million from the United States government.
Joe Biden had spent the better part of his presidency telling the American public — and White House reporters — that no pardon for his son was coming. Senior administration officials echoed that assurance dozens of times.
When Biden ultimately reversed course, he justified the decision by claiming Hunter had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”
The reversal ignited criticism from members of Biden’s own party. Several prominent Democrats publicly warned that issuing the pardon would hand Trump a political argument for expanding his own use of clemency once back in office.
That warning appears to have carried weight — even with Hunter Biden himself.
“I think my dad gave 80 or so pardons over a four-year period of time,” Hunter said during the MeidasTouch interview. “Donald Trump has given over 1,500 pardons in the first year alone. But I’m obviously — I’m not the one to be, I don’t think, fairly or unbiasedly talking about the presidential pardon power.”
The lion’s share of Trump’s second-term pardons flow from his decision to grant mass clemency to roughly 1,600 defendants connected to the January 6, 2021, breach of the United States Capitol. Beyond that action, Trump has signed off on 120 additional pardons and commutations.
Joe Biden, now 83, exited the presidency holding a clemency record no predecessor had matched. His administration issued 4,165 commutations and 80 pardons before the keys to the White House changed hands.
The total was celebrated by Biden as a step toward correcting what he described as longstanding injustices within the federal justice system.
For Hunter Biden, the week’s interview drew a sharp contrast — a man shielded from federal prosecution by one of the broadest pardons ever recorded, now questioning how the same constitutional tool is being used by the current occupant of the Oval Office.
