President Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, late Sunday evening, sparing him from being sentenced in a pair of separate court cases in which he was found guilty of illegally purchasing a gun and failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes — convictions the president claimed were politically motivated and a "miscarriage of justice."
A review of Hunter Biden’s yearslong legal saga, however, shows another story, and those involved in the prosecutions are making sure that side of the story is told in the aftermath of the president's decision.
"There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case," special prosecutor David Weiss said in a court filing following the pardoning.
Two IRS whistleblowers who sounded the alarm on Hunter Biden's tax issues also slammed the decision to pardon Hunter Biden, saying, "No amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President's son off the hook for multiple felonies."
"President Biden has the power to put his thumb on the scales of justice for his son, but at least he had to do it with a pardon explicitly for all the world to see rather than his political appointees doing it secretly behind the scenes. Either way it is a sad day for law abiding taxpayers to witness this special privilege for the powerful," IRS whistleblowers Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joe Ziegler said in a statement Sunday evening.
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"No amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President's son off the hook for multiple felonies. We did our duty, told the truth, and followed the law. Anyone reading the President's excuses now should remember that Hunter Biden admitted to his tax crimes in federal court, that Hunter Biden's attorneys have targeted us for our lawful whistleblower disclosures, and that we are suing one of those attorneys for smearing us with false accusations," they continued, referring to their $20 million defamation lawsuit against Hunter Biden’s high-profile attorney Abbe Lowell in September for claiming the IRS investigators illegally leaked Hunter Biden’s private tax information.
The guilty plea, guilty verdict and the president’s pardoning caps off a yearslong legal saga for the first son and his family, with the cases stretching back to 2018 and notably featured the IRS whistleblowers who sounded the alarm on Hunter Biden’s tax issues.
Hunter Biden was found guilty in the gun case in June, with a jury of his peers determining he made a false statement in the purchase of a gun, made a false statement related to information required to be kept by a federally licensed gun dealer, and possession of a gun by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.
He has a well-documented history of drug abuse, which was most notably documented in his 2021 memoir, "Beautiful Things," which walked readers through his previous need to smoke crack cocaine every 20 minutes, how his addiction was so prolific that he referred to himself as a "crack daddy" to drug dealers, and anecdotes revolving around drug deals, such as a Washington, D.C., crack dealer Biden nicknamed "Bicycles."
In the tax case, Hunter faced another trial regarding three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses regarding the failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. As jury selection was about to kick off in Los Angeles federal court in September, Hunter entered a surprise guilty plea.
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The tax case investigation originally kicked off in 2018, when the U.S. attorney in Delaware opened a probe into Hunter Biden’s finances. The first son initially notified the public that he was under investigation one month after his dad won the presidential election over President-elect Donald Trump in 2020.
"I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs," Hunter Biden said in a statement released in December of 2020. "I take this matter very seriously, but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers."
After President Biden took control of the Oval Office, his administration retained David Weiss, a Trump-appointed Republican charged with overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden in his capacity as U.S. attorney for Delaware. The Biden administration had gutted all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys under the Trump administration, except for two individuals: Weiss, and Special Counsel John Durham, who investigated the origins of the Russia probe surrounding the 2016 election.
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Last year, Hunter Biden was in the midst of hashing out a plea agreement to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as well as a pretrial diversion agreement regarding a separate felony charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. The plea agreement unraveled in Delaware court, however, and heightened his legal woes.
Weeks later, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel, broadening the scope of the investigation into Hunter Biden. With the plea deal officially at an impasse, Weiss subsequently charged Hunter Biden in September of last year for the gun charges, and brought forth the nine tax-related charges against Hunter Biden in December of 2023 in California court.
"The appointment of Mr. Weiss reinforces for the American people the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters," Garland said in the announcement of Weiss as special prosecutor. "I am confident that Mr. Weiss will carry out his responsibility in an evenhanded and urgent manner and in accordance with the highest traditions of this department."
Simultaneous to the investigations into Hunter Biden’s tax dealings and gun purchase scrutiny, IRS whistleblowers sounded the alarm that they gathered evidence Hunter Biden had allegedly committed "felony and misdemeanor tax charges." The whistleblowers were identified as IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler and his supervisor Gary Shapley.
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The whistleblowers told Congress last year that prosecutorial decisions made throughout the federal investigation into the president’s son were allegedly impacted by politics, claiming the Justice Department and IRS handled its probe of Hunter Biden’s finances with kid gloves.
Ziegler said he felt the investigation into Hunter Biden was "handcuffed" and that the DOJ and Weiss slow-walked the investigation, while underscoring that he is a Democrat and worked to remove any personal political bias.
"I'm a Democrat. In the last presidential election, I actually did not vote," Ziegler told CBS News last year. "I thought it would be irresponsible of me to do so because I didn't wanna show bias one way or the other."
The whistleblowers said the tax discrepancies stretched back to 2014 and related to Hunter Biden’s employment with Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas firm. Fox Digital first reported in 2020 that Hunter Biden did not report "approximately $400,000" in income he collected from his position on the board of Burisma Holdings when he joined in 2014.
Weiss' charges against Hunter Biden ultimately only focused on his failure to pay taxes between 2016 and 2020. However, the president's pardon of his son shields him from prosecution for offenses between 2014 and 2024.
After the whistleblowers' attorney sent a letter to lawmakers in April of last year indicating they wished to "make a protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress" over claims the Biden admin was allegedly mishandling the matter, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., subpoenaed the FBI to turn over materials related to a "criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national."
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Comer did ultimately receive documents related to President Biden’s alleged "criminal scheme," known as the FD-1023 document, but slammed the materials as essentially useless as they were reportedly overwhelmingly redacted.
Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee interviewed the IRS whistleblowers and released transcripts of their interviews last year showing claims the Biden administration slow-walked the investigation and claiming the DOJ refused to appoint Weiss special counsel status. The DOJ denied the claims.
Shapley claimed the agency obtained a message from WhatsApp dated July 30, 2017, from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, CEO of Harvest Fund Management, where the president's son allegedly threatened his business associate by leveraging his father’s political clout.
"I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight," Hunter Biden allegedly wrote. The message was sent after Biden’s term as vice president under the Obama administration, and before he was elected president in 2020.
"And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction," the message continues. "I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father."
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The White House has repeatedly denied the president had any business dealings with his son.
As the investigations and whistleblower claims mounted, House Republicans opened an impeachment inquiry into Biden, with the House Oversight Committee, House Judiciary Committee and House Ways and Means Committee releasing a lengthy report in August that Biden engaged in "impeachable conduct" and "defrauded the United States to enrich his family."
Republicans said there was "overwhelming evidence" that Biden participated in a "conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family" to the tune of more than $27 million from foreign individuals or entities since 2014.
The inquiry has fizzled in recent months, as the presidential election took center stage on the national level.
Biden declared in his statement Sunday evening that the prosecution of Hunter was a "miscarriage of justice," apparently bolstering his reasoning for the pardon after he said at least twice he would not pardon his son.
"From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted," Biden said in his statement announcing the pardon.
"It is clear that Hunter was treated differently. The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases," he continued.
"I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision."
Similar to his dad, Hunter Biden released a statement Sunday arguing the investigations and prosecutions were politically motivated.
"I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport," Hunter Biden said in a statement to Fox News. "Despite all of this, I have maintained my sobriety for more than five years because of my deep faith and the unwavering love and support of my family and friends."
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Weiss's office for comment, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman, Greg Wehner, and Charles Creitz contributed to this report.