He added: “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
It was a remarkable turnaround for a man whose presidency and five-decade career was built in part on the idea that he would never interfere with the administration of justice. In 2020, he made the case that former President Donald J. Trump should be ousted from office to restore that kind of independence in America’s democracy, and he argued the same in 2024.
But in his statement, Mr. Biden sought to make the case for interfering after all, accusing his political enemies of going after his son in ways that anyone else would not have been. He said that he still believed in the justice system, but added, “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.”
In fact, the president’s announcement came at the same time that Mr. Trump made it clearer than ever that his second term would be focused on retribution and revenge against Mr. Biden — with Hunter Biden as a prime target. The president-elect on Saturday said he would name Kash Patel, a loyalist who has vowed to go after Mr. Trump’s enemies, as F.B.I. director.
In his statement, Mr. Biden said, “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”
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