President Joe Biden is sticking to his June pledge not to pardon his son, his spokesman said Thursday, after Hunter Biden filed a surprise request accepting responsibility for tax evasion and other tax crimes.
“No,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked aboard Air Force One whether Biden would reconsider his pledge. “It’s still no.”
Jean-Pierre also said the president would not seek to commute his son’s sentence before he leaves office in January.
The decision comes as Hunter Biden awaits sentencing after being convicted by a jury in June on three felony gun charges and as he tries to avoid a second trial on allegations of a series of tax crimes.
That trial was scheduled to begin Thursday in Los Angeles. But just before it began, Biden’s lawyers told the judge they would enter an Alford plea, in which he would maintain his innocence but acknowledge that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him.
The judge in Biden’s tax case has not yet accepted the proposed request, which would prevent a new trial that would weigh heavily on the president and cast a shadow over his final weeks before the November election.
While the case is now seen as much less of a political liability for Democrats now that Biden has given up his re-election campaign, it still posed a potential distraction during a long campaign that the president hopes to use to secure his legacy and bolster Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
Jean-Pierre would not say whether Biden was aware in advance that Hunter Biden planned to change his request.
Courts treat an Alford plea the same as a guilty plea, meaning Biden could face additional prison time on top of the maximum 25 years he received earlier this year for his gun conviction.
Biden pledged last summer not to pardon Hunter, saying he was confident the trial had been fair.
“I will do nothing,” he said on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy. “I will abide by the decision of the jury.”
