A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump accused President Joe Biden of rewriting history when he pardoned his son, Hunter. The criticism came in connection with post-pardon litigation over how to officially dispose of Hunter’s tax case in California.
His gun-related prosecution in Delaware was already terminated Tuesday in light of the pardon. He had been set to be sentenced in both cases before the president pardoned him Sunday. That ensured that neither case would proceed but administrative-type questions remained about whether the two indictments would be dismissed — as Hunter requested — or if the cases would simply be terminated.
In an order Tuesday, the California judge, Mark Scarsi, said the case will be terminated once the pardon is formally received by the court. But in the process of issuing his order, the judge criticized the president’s justification of clemency for his son.
“For example, the President asserts that Mr. Biden ‘was treated differently’ from others ‘who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions,’ implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction. But he is not,” Scarsi wrote in his order.
“Upon pleading guilty to the charges in this case, Mr. Biden admitted that he engaged in tax evasion after this period of addiction by wrongfully deducting as business expenses items he knew were personal expenses, including luxury clothing, escort services, and his daughter’s law school tuition,” the judge wrote. “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States,” the judge wrote, “but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.” Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in Donald Trump’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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