‘A Press Release Is Not A Par­don’: Judge Shreds Biden’s Hunter Move, Calls Pres­i­dent A Liar

Trump-appoint­ed Judge Mark C. Scar­si ripped into Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s deci­sion to par­don his son Hunter Biden on Tues­day in a fil­ing, say­ing that while the pres­i­dent has broad author­i­ty, he can­not “rewrite his­to­ry.”

Biden released a state­ment Sun­day evening announc­ing his par­don of Hunter Biden’s cas­es, claim­ing that any “rea­son­able” per­son review­ing the facts in the case would con­clude that his son was being tar­get­ed because of his con­nec­tion to the pres­i­dent. In a fil­ing on Tues­day evening, Scar­si, who presided over Hunter’s fed­er­al tax case in Cal­i­for­nia, crit­i­cized the pres­i­dent for mis­rep­re­sent­ing the facts in his state­ment. (RELATED: Fmr Oba­ma Aide Slams Biden As ‘A Trag­ic Fig­ure,’ Says His Ego Keeps Get­ting ‘In The Way’)

“Accord­ing to the Pres­i­dent, ‘[n]o rea­son­able per­son who looks at the facts of [Mr. Biden’s] cas­es can reach any oth­er con­clu­sion than [Mr. Biden] was sin­gled out only because he is [the President’s] son.’ But two fed­er­al judges express­ly reject­ed Mr. Biden’s argu­ments that the Gov­ern­ment pros­e­cut­ed Mr. Biden because of his famil­ial rela­tion to the Pres­i­dent,” Scar­si wrote.

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U.S. dis­trict court judge takes issue with Biden’s claim in his par­don that no rea­son­able per­son look­ing at the case could reach any con­clu­sion oth­er than that Hunter was tar­get­ed because he is the POTUS’s son, not­ing that fed­er­al judges & Biden’s own DOJ reject­ed that argu­ment. pic.twitter.com/vdxX9YDXyr

— Jer­ry Dun­leavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) Decem­ber 4, 2024

“And the President’s own Attor­ney Gen­er­al and Depart­ment of Jus­tice per­son­nel over­saw the inves­ti­ga­tion lead­ing to the charges. In the President’s esti­ma­tion, this legion of fed­er­al civ­il ser­vants, the under­signed includ­ed, are unrea­son­able peo­ple,” Scar­si said. “In short, a press release is not a par­don. The Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides the Pres­i­dent with broad author­i­ty to grant reprieves and par­dons for offens­es against the Unit­ed States, U.S. Con­st. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Con­sti­tu­tion give the Pres­i­dent the author­i­ty to rewrite his­to­ry.”

In Sep­tem­ber, Hunter plead­ed guilty to fed­er­al tax charges in his Cal­i­for­nia case after he alleged­ly failed to pay an esti­mat­ed $1.4 mil­lion in tax­es and filed fal­si­fied tax paper­work. While Scar­si had ini­tial­ly accept­ed the plea and sched­uled Hunter’s sen­tenc­ing for Dec. 16, he stat­ed in his recent rul­ing that he would vacate the sen­tenc­ing hear­ing but would not ter­mi­nate the case until the par­don is for­mal­ly signed by Biden.

Since Biden’s announce­ment to par­don his son, the pres­i­dent has faced major back­lash from pun­dits and law­mak­ers on both sides of the aisle due to his and his staff’s repeat­ed denials that he would par­don Hunter.

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