Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily
Speaker 1: ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 2: the third of December. I'm Zara, I'm Sam. Yesterday we
Speaker 2: found out that outgoing US President Joe Biden will pardon
Speaker 2: his son Hunter, with just a matter of weeks left
Speaker 2: before there is a peaceful transfer of power. The President
Speaker 2: said he was pardoning his son because of a miscarriage
Speaker 2: of justice.
Speaker 1: And part of the fun of working in the newsroom
Speaker 1: is having the TVs on with the rolling twenty four
Speaker 1: hour news channels. We've got some Australian channels, we've got
Speaker 1: some overseas channels, and you literally hear a gasp when
Speaker 1: something big breaks on TV.
Speaker 2: That is what happened.
Speaker 1: That's what happened with this story yesterday. I want to
Speaker 1: get into why it was such a big story, but
Speaker 1: before we do that, give me a sense of who
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will just say at the top that I
Speaker 2: know it's not usual etiquette to refer to a president
Speaker 2: by their first name, but for the sake of being
Speaker 2: able to distinguish son from father, I'll refer to President
Speaker 2: Biden as Joe just once and Hunter as Hunter, just
Speaker 2: so that we know who are.
Speaker 1: To there's a lot of Biden's in this story, there is.
Speaker 2: Okay, So we'll start with the personal life of Hunter Biden.
Speaker 2: So Hunter is the child of Joe and Neelia Biden,
Speaker 2: and Neelia Biden was Joe Biden's first wife. She tragically
Speaker 2: died in a car crash, alongside one of the couple's
Speaker 2: other children, Naomi. Hunter and his brother Bo survived that
Speaker 2: car crash, and you know, there's been a lot spoken
Speaker 2: about the impact of that crash on Joe Biden's life
Speaker 2: and on the way that he has presented himselves, both
Speaker 2: personally and of course in his professional life. Bo Biden,
Speaker 2: who as I said, was the one who survived the
Speaker 2: crash alongside Hunter. He died of brain cancer in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: So of Joe and Neelia Biden's children, Hunter is the
Speaker 2: only surviving child. Joe Biden did go on to have
Speaker 2: another child though, with Jill Biden, who is his current wife.
Speaker 2: So that's a bit about Hunter's life growing up. I
Speaker 2: guess his personal life, and I think it needs to
Speaker 2: be said that there was a lot of tragedy in
Speaker 2: the lives of the Biden family, especially the early lives
Speaker 2: of their family. In his twenty twenty one memoir Beautiful Things,
Speaker 2: Hunter detailed his history of illicit substance and alcohol use,
Speaker 2: as well as his mental ill health. Joe Biden has
Speaker 2: also spoken about his son's addiction. He said, and I'll
Speaker 2: just quote it directly here. So many families who have
Speaker 2: had loved one's battle addiction understand the feeling of pride
Speaker 2: seeing someone you love come out the other side and
Speaker 2: be so strong and resilient in their recovery. So that
Speaker 2: has been quite a big part of how the media
Speaker 2: has spoken about and considered Hunter Biden in public life.
Speaker 2: A lot has been written about and been spoken about
Speaker 2: his battle with addiction.
Speaker 1: And not just in the media, also in the political
Speaker 1: sphere as well.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. So that's him personally. In terms of
Speaker 2: his professional life, Hunter Biden is a lawyer and a businessman.
Speaker 2: Early in his career he worked for a financial services company.
Speaker 2: He then went on to co found a lobbying firm,
Speaker 2: but he stepped away from that lobbying firm when his
Speaker 2: dad became the vice presidential pick for Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's about two thousand and seven exactly.
Speaker 2: And then more recently, Hunter was on the board of
Speaker 2: a Chinese equity fund, and the way that came about
Speaker 2: again has been written about quite extensively because it came
Speaker 2: about after Hunter Biden met the chief executive of this
Speaker 2: company when he accompanied Joe Biden on an official visit
Speaker 2: to China. So he was on the board of a
Speaker 2: Chinese equity fund. Then later he was also on the
Speaker 2: board of a Ukrainian industrial company, and this role has
Speaker 2: had a lot of focus because at the time, Joe
Speaker 2: Biden was playing a really significant, almost leading role in
Speaker 2: the Obama administration's relationship with Ukraine at the same time
Speaker 2: that his son was sitting on a Ukrainian board.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we've talked about the personal life of Hunter Biden,
Speaker 1: the professional life of Hunter Biden, but the reason he's
Speaker 1: in the headlines today is he's been pardoned. What was
Speaker 1: he pardoned from?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's a good question, and that's I
Speaker 2: think a good way to set it up. So he
Speaker 2: was pardoned because he had criminal convictions next to his name.
Speaker 2: So I'll outline the two sets of charges and the
Speaker 2: two convictions because they are different. And he's been pardoned
Speaker 2: from both of them. When I refer to conviction, I'm
Speaker 2: using that word specifically because in both cases Hunter Biden
Speaker 2: has had a conviction. They're no longer just charges. He
Speaker 2: has been convicted of these crimes. So we'll start first
Speaker 2: with the charges that relate to guns. So in June,
Speaker 2: a Delaware jury found that Hunter Biden lied about his
Speaker 2: personal history of drug use when he bought a gun
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen. Now it's illegal in Delaware to buy
Speaker 2: a gun under the influence of drugs, and this case
Speaker 2: began back in twenty eighteen when federal prosecutors started investigating
Speaker 2: him and they found that he had, like during a
Speaker 2: background check, to purchase a gun in the state. And ultimately,
Speaker 2: as I said, the jury found that he was guilty.
Speaker 2: In that case. The charges carry up to twenty five
Speaker 2: years imprisonment and around one point one million Australian dollars.
Speaker 1: So serious jail time on the line here.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And I mean, like, that's what could have happened,
Speaker 2: not necessarily what would have happened. So after the verdict
Speaker 2: in the gun case, the lead prosecutor said the combination
Speaker 2: of guns and drugs made Hunter's conduct dangerous. So giving
Speaker 2: a bit more color as to why and how this
Speaker 2: case came about.
Speaker 1: So that's case one. Now it's case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's the gun case. I'm really simplifying here,
Speaker 2: but gun case tax case. So in the tax case,
Speaker 2: Hunter pleaded guilty to this. It was in September of
Speaker 2: this year, so it didn't end up having to go
Speaker 2: before a jury because he pleaded guilty. At the time.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors accused Hunter of spending one point four million US
Speaker 2: dollars between twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen on quote an
Speaker 2: extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his.
Speaker 1: Tax bills, so essentially tax evasion exactly.
Speaker 2: And in this case, the judge said that Hunter faces
Speaker 2: a maximum penalty of fifteen years in prison and again
Speaker 2: around a million dollars in fines.
Speaker 1: So you've got these two cases, the gun case, in
Speaker 1: the tax case, he was found guilty. In the gun case,
Speaker 1: he pleaded guilty tax case. So two convictions, two convictions
Speaker 1: and two quite hefty sentences potentially in front of him.
Speaker 1: But he hasn't been sentenced saturally the case, right.
Speaker 2: No, he hasn't. So he was due to be sentenced
Speaker 2: for both sets of convictions this month and.
Speaker 3: Then and that's where we kind of get to what
Speaker 3: we're talking about today. Joe Biden intervened, and so yesterday
Speaker 3: Joe Biden pardoned his son before he could be sentenced.
Speaker 3: R What does it mean when a president pardons someone?
Speaker 2: Yes, So, the ability to pardon people convicted of federal
Speaker 2: crimes is such a fascinating element of what the US
Speaker 2: president can do and what powers the US president has.
Speaker 2: I was going to say he and that would have
Speaker 2: also been accurate. What he has. It's like they have
Speaker 2: power to undo a court's decision to find someone guilty,
Speaker 2: even decades after the fact. It's also a uniquely American thing.
Speaker 2: We don't have it in Australia. I turned to you
Speaker 2: at our desk yesterday and I said, I have a
Speaker 2: silly question, can this happen in Australia, to which you
Speaker 2: said no.
Speaker 1: Well, it's one of the real quirks of the American
Speaker 1: system is how intertwined the justice system and the president
Speaker 1: can be. I mean the president appoints judges as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the power, as you just intimated,
Speaker 2: the power to pardon is granted to the president by
Speaker 2: the Constitution, and it's a fairly broad power. It is
Speaker 2: important to note that almost every president has pardoned at
Speaker 2: least someone one person in their time in office, for
Speaker 2: better or for worse. We're not going to pass judgment
Speaker 2: on that. To give you a few examples, Bill Clinton
Speaker 2: used the presidential pardon to clear his brother. So his
Speaker 2: brother Roger had a conviction for cocaine possession and Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton intervened there. Gerald Ford cleared Richard Nixon's name of corruption,
Speaker 2: and even George Washington pardoned a few men convict for
Speaker 2: their role in a rebellion against taxes in the seventeen nineties.
Speaker 2: So pardoning is not, by any means a new or
Speaker 2: novel concept. It has been done many, many times before.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like there's a variety of reasons why
Speaker 1: a president would offer a pardon to somebody. Yesterday we
Speaker 1: got a statement from Joe Biden about why he pardoned Hunter.
Speaker 1: What did he say?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he said that he was pardoning Hunter because
Speaker 2: he believed that the Hunter had been treated differently as
Speaker 2: the president's son, so.
Speaker 1: Essentially that the justice system hadn't quite worked.
Speaker 2: As right and that it had been biased due to
Speaker 2: Hunter's family connections to the president. He said, no reasonable
Speaker 2: person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can
Speaker 2: reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only
Speaker 2: because he was my son, and that is wrong. I
Speaker 2: believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled
Speaker 2: with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this
Speaker 2: process and it led to a miscarriage of justice. The
Speaker 2: President used the tax case as an example, and he
Speaker 2: said that that was a really clear case of Hunter
Speaker 2: Biden being treated differently. He said, those who were late
Speaker 2: paying their taxes because of serious addictions but paid them
Speaker 2: back subsequently with interest and penalties are typically given non
Speaker 2: criminal resolutions, and of course we know that's not what
Speaker 2: happened in Hunter Biden's case. I do just want to
Speaker 2: mention something. Joe Biden had previously said that he wouldn't
Speaker 2: do this, and I think that's really significant. So Joe
Speaker 2: Biden had, on various occasions both him and his administration,
Speaker 2: had made clear that he would not pardon his son.
Speaker 1: I remember this coming up as early as the presidential
Speaker 1: debate when Joe Biden was attempting to win office. This
Speaker 1: has been a life political issue for many, many years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, if you'd say it started, then
Speaker 2: it's been as recently as last month, when the White
Speaker 2: House Press Secretary was asked explicitly if this would be
Speaker 2: happening because we know that the term of office is
Speaker 2: almost up, and she said, We've been asked this question
Speaker 2: multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no. But that
Speaker 2: was obviously not to be.
Speaker 1: And so there are clearly a few times factors here.
Speaker 1: One is that the sentencing was coming up in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks for these cases. The second is that
Speaker 1: the inauguration for Donald Trump is on January the twentieth.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to make sure that there's some
Speaker 1: runway into that to do the pardons you want to do.
Speaker 1: One question, though, I think a lot of us have
Speaker 1: regarding Donald Trump, is whether he can now overturn that party,
Speaker 1: Whether his arrival into the oval office means that the
Speaker 1: whole thing can be reversed. Can that happen?
Speaker 2: It's a short answer, and the short answer is no. Right,
Speaker 2: So pardons can't be reversed. So Joe Biden's decision will
Speaker 2: stand no matter who is in power. And that's significant
Speaker 2: because we know that Donald Trump has said a lot
Speaker 2: about Hunter Biden a lot of the campaign, at least
Speaker 2: when Joe Biden was his opponent focused on Hunter Biden
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump really sticking it to Joe Biden about
Speaker 2: the criminal convictions that his son had. I do just
Speaker 2: want to end on a tidbit though, which I thought
Speaker 2: was interesting. I was looking up who Donald Trump pardoned,
Speaker 2: just because you know, we have an incoming president and
Speaker 2: during his time in office, Donald Trump, among others, pardoned
Speaker 2: Charles Kushner, who is the father of his son in law.
Speaker 2: Follow me yep with Jared So Jared is married to Ivanka,
Speaker 2: his daughter and Jared's father. Charles was convicted of illegal
Speaker 2: campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. He was pardoned
Speaker 2: by Donald Trump. It was after the fact, he'd already
Speaker 2: served his sentence. It was more just to clear the air.
Speaker 2: And over the weekend we found out that Donald Trump
Speaker 2: has now nominated Kushner as the US ambassador to France.
Speaker 1: On the note of Donald Trump, it's going to be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how he responded this. He has a
Speaker 1: couple of potential pardons on his horizon. There's been a
Speaker 1: number of convictions of members of his team and himself
Speaker 1: since he's been in office. Last and that inauguration. As
Speaker 1: I said is on the twentieth of.
Speaker 2: January, exactly right. A really interesting quirk of the US
Speaker 2: presidential system.
Speaker 1: Thanks for that, Zara, and thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: on the Daily os this morning. We're going to be
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