WASHINGTON — Former first son Hunter Biden is claiming that his father only pardoned him because Donald Trump reclaimed the presidency in November 2024 — and “would not have” done so under “normal circumstances” while the appeals process played out.
“Donald Trump went and changed everything,” Hunter said in an interview released Monday on journalist Tommy Christopher’s Substack platform. “And I don’t think that I need to make much of an argument about why it changed everything.”
The 55-year-old — who pleaded guilty last year to evading $1.4 million in back taxes to the IRS and was convicted on felony gun charges — declined to mention that he had apparently been present for discussions on pardons during Joe Biden’s final months in the White House.
“I’ve said this before,” Hunter went on. “My dad would not have pardoned me if President Trump had not won, and the reason that he would not have pardoned me is because I was certain that in a normal circumstance of the appeals [I would have won].”
The Biden scion added that Trump was planning a “revenge tour” against his father, which would have made himself the “easiest target to just to intimidate and to not just impact me, but impact my entire family into, into silence in a way that at least he is not — it’s not as easy for him to do [with] me being pardoned.”
“I realize how privileged I am,” Hunter went on. “I realize how lucky I am; I realize that I got something that almost no one would have gotten.
“But I’m incredibly grateful for it and I have to say that I don’t think that it requires me to make much of a detailed argument for why it was the right thing to do, at least from my dad, from his perspective.”
Ex-White House chief of staff Jeff Zients spilled last month that Hunter “was involved” in clemency talks and even “attended a few meetings,” a source with knowledge of the Biden official’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee told The Post.
