[President Joe Biden recently made several false and inaccurate claims to defend his controversial decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden. In a wide-ranging interview with USA Today, the president also made a false claim about inflation.
Biden issued the unconditional pardon to Hunter in December, sparing his son from a potential prison sentence for tax and gun convictions. The far-reaching pardon also shielded Hunter from future prosecution by the incoming Trump administration.
In the interview, Biden insisted that he learned about two factors that led him to pardon Hunter. The first factor was that Hunter had paid all his taxes, including penalties and fees. However, the judge ruled that this didn’t impact whether Hunter broke tax laws, and special counsel David Weiss’ prosecutors have also pushed back on the idea that the $2 million made the IRS whole.
The second factor was that Hunter was unfairly prosecuted for lying about illegal drug use on an ATF background check form, and for possessing a gun while addicted to illegal drugs. Biden claimed that no one has ever been tried on those charges before, but legal experts have said that charges of drug addicts lying on the form are usually brought in tandem with more serious offenses.
Biden also claimed that the gun Hunter possessed was returned, which is provably false. Witness testimony, documentary evidence, and surveillance footage presented at trial demonstrated that Hunter’s sister-in-law and romantic partner, Hallie Biden, took the firearm from his car and threw it in a trash can outside a Delaware grocery store.
Additionally, Biden claimed that his son was supported by former Attorneys General and former leaders in both parties, but the White House couldn’t provide evidence backing up these claims.
When asked about his handling of inflation, Biden touted the economic impact of major legislation he signed. He said that the inflation rate was 9% when he came into office, but this is false. The year-over-year inflation rate in the pandemic-era month Biden became president was actually about 1.4%, not 9%.
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