Politics
Biden claims Hunter charges were politically motivated. Here is what the facts show
In announcing that he was pardoning his son Hunter in two federal cases, President Biden said the criminal charges “came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.”
The president’s claim that the cases were politically motivated — which his son’s camp has long asserted — has been met with skepticism from some corners.
Biden was convicted by a jury of illegally purchasing a handgun in Delaware, and he pleaded guilty to tax charges in Los Angeles.
Here is what we know about the cases and the pardon.
What is the gun case?
Earlier this year, a federal jury in Delaware convicted Biden of federal gun crimes, including lying about being drug-free when he purchased and briefly owned a gun while he was addicted to crack cocaine.
Biden was on trial for three felony charges, and the jury convicted him of all three. In addition to lying on a federal background check form and giving a false statement to a federal firearms dealer, he was also convicted of possessing a gun while being an illicit drug user.
The testimony the jurors heard centered around a question Biden answered on a background check form at a Delaware gun store on Oct. 12, 2018: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
Biden checked “No.”
Prosecutors told jurors that there was “overwhelming evidence” of Biden’s drug use in the years before and the months after the gun purchase. They summoned ex-girlfriends and photos of L.A. hotel rooms where Biden had gone on drug-fueled benders. Prosecutors also played excerpts of Biden’s memoir, Beautiful Things, in which he recounted years of hard partying following his brother’s death.
Abbe Lowell, the defense attorney, argued to jurors that his client had completed a rehab program in L.A. and that the gun salesman did not perceive Biden to be under the influence or glassy-eyed. No witness at the trial testified to observing Biden using drugs in the days after purchasing the Colt Cobra revolver.
His attorneys contended that the gun was never fired and remained locked up until Hallie Biden, his brother’s widow, found it on the morning of Oct. 23, 2018, and in a panic, disposed of it in a trash bin outside a nearby grocery store. Biden, who was dating Hallie Biden at the time, urged her to retrieve the gun once he discovered it missing, asking her, “Are you insane?”
When Hallie Biden returned to the supermarket, the gun was gone from the trash can, and Biden instructed her to contact police.
What did jurors say about the politics of the case?
The Times interviewed two jurors — a 51-year-old woman from northern Delaware and a 68-year-old man from the southern half of the state. Speaking on condition of anonymity, both said there was clear evidence that Biden knowingly lied about his drug addiction in order to buy the gun.
The male juror said that despite repeatedly noticing the first lady in the courtroom, he rarely thought of the fact that Hunter Biden was the president’s son.
“You are looking at him. You are looking at his family,” the juror said of the experience in court. But he said he “tried to block the rest of it out” because Biden “was just like everybody else.”
“It was not politically motivated. Politics played no part in this whatsoever. Again, we just went by the evidence,” the juror said.
What about the tax case?
In September, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all nine federal tax charges he faced, just as jury selection was about to begin in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
The indictment in the tax case included racy details of Biden’s life between 2016 and 2019 — the period during which now he admits he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes — including the hundreds of thousands of dollars he spent on escorts, a pornographic website, hotels, luxury car rentals and other lavish personal expenses.
As part of his guilty plea, Biden had acknowledged improperly classifying his personal expenses as business expenses.
Did Hunter Biden face prison time?
In the tax case, Biden faced a maximum of 17 years in federal prison, although he was likely to be sentenced to a few years in prison at most. In the gun case, he faced a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison, although as a nonviolent first-time offender, he was likely to face no more than two years behind bars.
In the tax case, U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi was scheduled to sentence him in Los Angeles on Dec. 16. In the handgun case, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika was set to hand down her sentence in Delaware on Dec. 12. Both judges were appointed to the bench by President Trump.
What does the pardon do?
The pardon covers offenses that Hunter Biden “may have committed or taken part in” from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024. It effectively wiped away the two pending criminal cases in which the younger Biden faced years in prison.
However, it also offers immunity for other conduct in that period, when he was active in foreign business dealings, including his seat on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company he joined in 2014 while his father was vice president.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Biden said in his statement. “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.”
Shortly after the pardon was issued, Hunter Biden’s lawyers filed petitions to have both criminal cases dismissed.
How is this a change in the president’s position?
The White House and President Biden himself have long insisted he would not pardon his son.
Shortly before the trial testimony began, President Biden told ABC journalist David Muir that he would accept the jury’s verdict in the Delaware case.
“Have you ruled out a pardon for your son?” Muir asked.
“Yes,” Biden replied.
After the gun verdict, the president said he would continue to “respect the judicial process” while his son considered an appeal.
What has Hunter Biden’s team claimed about the prosecutions?
Hunter Biden has long been the target of ire from right-wing political figures, activists and the media.
In both criminal cases, Hunter Biden and his legal team had sought to paint him as a victim of selective, unfair, and politically motivated prosecution. His lawyers had pointed to a plea deal reached in 2023 that would have spared Hunter any prison time. It unraveled under questioning from a judge in Delaware, and after the deal collapsed, David C. Weiss, the special counsel, secured indictments in both cases.
Hunter Biden filed but later dropped a defamation lawsuit against Fox News over a fictional program that depicted his legal troubles.
Hunter Biden’s lawsuit asserted that Fox News defamed him in a six-part series called “The Trial of Hunter Biden: A Mock Trial for the American People” that was shown on its streaming platform Fox Nation.
U.S. military forces stopped and boarded a second sanctioned tanker carrying oil from Iran in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said on Thursday, ramping up pressure on Tehran as the Trump administration seeks to resume negotiations to end the war.
A naval boarding team roped down from hovering helicopters and fanned out on the vessel, the M/T Majestic X, according to a Pentagon statement that included a 17-second video of the operation.
The military said the boarding was part of a “global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate.”
Earlier this week, Navy SEALS boarded another ship in the Indian Ocean, the M/T Tifani, after the Pentagon said it was carrying oil from Iran.
Navy destroyers are also shadowing several other Iranian vessels, including the Dorena and Sevin, which had left from the Iranian port of Chabahar before the U.S.-imposed blockade began on April 13, a U.S. military official said. The Navy is directing those ships to return to an Iranian port, the official said.
With the M/T Tifani and M/T Majestic X now at least temporarily in the custody of the military, a U.S. military official said it was up to the White House to decide what to do with the sanctioned vessels and their cargo. The administration previously seized several tankers carrying illicit oil from Venezuela after a U.S. commando raid there in January that seized Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president.
“International waters cannot be used as a shield by sanctioned actors,” the Pentagon said in its statement on Thursday, adding that the department would “continue to deny illicit actors and their vessels freedom of maneuver in the maritime domain.”
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hinted last week that the U.S. military would likely commence boarding operations like the ones this week. He said that U.S. military commanders elsewhere in the world, and especially in the Indo-Pacific region, would “actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran.”
The U.S. Navy has turned back at least 31 ships trying to enter or exit Iranian ports since an American blockade outside the contested Strait of Hormuz began about a week ago, U.S. Central Command said late Wednesday.
Last Sunday, a Navy destroyer disabled and seized the Touska, an Iranian cargo ship, after it tried to evade the blockade. It was the first time a vessel was reported to have tried to evade the U.S.-imposed blockade on any ship entering or exiting Iranian ports since it took effect last week.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained why President Donald Trump does not consider Iran’s seizure of two ships in the Strait of Hormuz a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
Leavitt made the statement during an interview with Fox News’ Martha McCallum on Wednesday just hours after Iran captured the Greek and Mediterranean-flagged vessels.
“Does the seizure of two ships — as we said, they were Greek and Mediterranean-owned ships with cargo on them, and the reports are that Iran basically seized them and then moved them into Iranian waters. We don’t know what’s going to happen to these crews. We’re not sure where all of this is going. Does the president view that as a violation of the ceasefire?” McCallum asked.
“No, because these were not U.S. ships. These were not Israeli ships. These were two international vessels,” Leavitt responded.
US FORCES ATTEMPTING TO BOARD SANCTIONED RUSSIAN-FLAGGED OIL TANKER IN NORTH ATLANTIC, SOURCES SAY
Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, conducts a press briefing. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“And for the American media, who are sort of blowing this out of proportion to discredit the president’s facts that he has completely obliterated Iran’s conventional Navy, these two ships were taken by speedy gunboats. Iran has gone from having the most lethal Navy in the Middle East to now acting like a bunch of pirates. They don’t have control over the strait,” she continued.
“This is piracy that we are seeing on display. And the naval blockade that the United States has imposed continues to be incredibly effective. And, to be clear, the blockade is on ships going to and from Iranian ports. And the point of this is the economic leverage that we maintain over Iran now. While there’s a ceasefire with respect to the military and kinetic strikes, Operation Economic Fury continues, and the crux of that is this naval blockade,” she added.
The Iranian made ‘Seraj’ a high-speed missile-launching assault boat on display in Tehran on August 23, 2010, as Iran kicked off mass production of two high-speed missile-launching assault boats the ‘Seraj’ (Lamp) and ‘Zolfaqar’ (named after Shiite Imam Ali’s sword) speedboats which will be manufactured at the marine industries complex of the ministry of defense. (YALDA MOAIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said the vessels, identified as the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, were operating without proper authorization and had tampered with navigation systems, accusations that could not be independently verified. The ships had earlier reported coming under fire near the strait, underscoring the increasingly volatile conditions in one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.
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The Guard attacked a third ship, identified as the Euphoria, which had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, Iranian media reported. It did not seize that vessel.
Ships and tankers in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Musandam, Oman, April 18, 2026. (Reuters)
Both the U.S. and Iranian sides have targeted commercial and cargo vessels as part of a broader pressure campaign tied to stalled negotiations. U.S. forces have also moved to seize at least one Iranian-linked vessel in the region, with each side accusing the other of violating the terms of a fragile ceasefire.
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The Strait of Hormuz is a vital artery for global oil shipments, with roughly 20% of the world’s supply passing through it. Traffic has slowed dramatically as ships reroute or avoid the area amid gunfire, seizures and conflicting directives from both militaries.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger met privately with President Trump and administration officials Wednesday to press for federal support and yet-unpaid wildfire recovery funding as the region continues to rebuild from the 2025 fires.
“This afternoon we met with President Trump and Administration officials to advocate for families who lost everything,” Bass and Barger said in a statement. “We had a very positive discussion about FEMA and other rebuilding funds as well as the support of the President to continue joining us in pressuring the insurance companies to pay what they owe — and for the big banks to step up to ease the financial pressure on L.A. families.”
Barger said the two leaders had a “high-level discussion” with the president in the Oval Office, sharing stories about what fire survivors are experiencing day to day. She added that “we left details behind with the President,” but did not specify whether Trump made any funding or policy promises during the meeting.
“First and foremost, today’s meeting was to thank the President for his initial support of infusing federal resources to expedite debris removal, as well as his recent tweet about insurance companies, which have already proven fruitful,” she said in a statement provided to The Times.
Bass was similarly reserved about the discussions, telling reporters that “we will follow up with the details,” but signaled progress is being made on federal support.
“I think what’s important is that we certainly got the president’s support in terms of, you know, what is needed, and then the appropriate people were in the room for us to follow up. And that was Russ Vought, who is the head of the Office of Management and budget,” Bass told KNX on Wednesday.
The meeting comes on the heels of a yearlong standoff between California leaders and the Trump administration over wildfire recovery funding, disaster response and whether the federal government should have a say in local rebuilding permitting.
California leaders, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, have accused the Trump administration of withholding billions in critical wildfire aid, prompting a lawsuit over stalled recovery funds. Officials allege political bias in the delay of billions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Newsom visited Washington in December. When he made his rounds on Capitol Hill, he met with five lawmakers, including three who serve on the Senate and House appropriations committees, to renew calls for $33.9 billion in federal aid for Los Angeles County fire recovery.
But the governor said he was denied a meeting with FEMA and would not say whether he had attempted to meet with Trump to discuss the issue.
Bass, meanwhile, appears to have found a path to the president on a subject that has been paramount for her community.
The fruitful meeting comes after Trump lobbed insults at the mayor at a news conference earlier this year, where he called her “incompetent” for how she handled last year’s wildfire recovery efforts. He alleged that under Bass’ leadership, the city’s delay in issuing local building permits will take years when it should have taken “two or three days.”
California officials, including Newsom, have urged the Trump administration to send Congress a formal request for the $33.9 billion in recovery aid needed to rebuild homes, schools, utilities and other critical infrastructure destroyed or damaged when the fires tore through neighborhoods more than 15 months ago.
What Bass and Barger’s meeting with the president ultimately produces remains to be seen.
The billions in recovery aid have not yet materialized, but the meeting could potentially give those discussions new momentum.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment about the meeting.
Earlier this month, Trump criticized insurance provider State Farm on Truth Social for its handling of the devastating Los Angeles County wildfires. He accused the insurance giant of abandoning its policyholders when tragedy struck.
“It was brought to my attention that the Insurance Companies, in particular, State Farm, have been absolutely horrible to people that have been paying them large Premiums for years, only to find that when tragedy struck, these horrendous Companies were not there to help!” Trump wrote.
But the rebuke didn’t come out of the blue. It stemmed from a controversial February visit to Los Angeles by Trump administration officials.
Trump tapped Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in an effort to strip California state and local governments of their authority to permit the rebuilding of homes destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires.
Within the week, Zeldin was in Los Angeles, bashing Newsom and Los Angeles officials at a roundtable with fire victims and reporters, saying that residents were suffering from “bureaucratic, red tape delays and incompetency” and that leadership was “denying them … the ability to rebuild their lives”.
During the trip, officials heard direct complaints from local leaders and fire victims about insurers being slow, restrictive and insufficient with their claim payouts.
After these meetings, Trump directed Zeldin to investigate the insurers’ responses. State Farm, facing roughly $7 billion in fire-related claims, is also under formal investigation by California’s insurance commissioner over its handling of the crisis.
Despite tensions with the administration, Bass and Barger appeared confident that progress was being made on the insurance and funding issues.
“Our job is to fight for our communities,” their joint statement concluded. “When it comes to this recovery, our federal partners are essential, and we are grateful for the support of the President.”
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