Biden ‘impugning’ US integrity – Musk

US President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter could undermine America’s “integrity,” billionaire tech tycoon Elon Musk has said. Biden previously suggested that he would not intervene in the legal proceedings involving his son.

In June, Hunter Biden was convicted on three felony charges for lying about his drug-related issues on his gun-purchase paperwork when buying a revolver in 2018. In a separate case, he pleaded guilty to three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses in September, with the sentencing slated for December.

Replying to a post on X by fellow entrepreneur David Marcus on Sunday, Musk wrote: “I don’t care about the drugs stuff, but impugning the integrity of the United States is not ok.”

Soon after his victory in the election on November 5, President-elect Donald Trump chose the Tesla and Space X CEO to head the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. The initiative will apparently operate outside the confines of the US government.

In a statement issued on Sunday evening, Biden announced that the “full and unconditional pardon” covers offenses which his son “has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted.”

The president claimed that his son was prosecuted “selectively and unfairly” because of his familial ties, insisting that “people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form.” He added that the cases against Hunter constitute a “miscarriage of justice,” which his Republican opponents are allegedly behind.

Since Biden took office in 2021, a number of prominent GOP politicians have alleged that his son acted as the president’s ‘bagman’ in corrupt dealings involving foreign nations. The outgoing president has denied the claims.

Commenting on the pardon in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump denounced Biden’s decision as an “abuse and miscarriage of Justice.”

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” he wrote, referring to people who were prosecuted for taking part in the unrest on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

Several Republican members of Congress have also expressed indignation at Biden’s decision.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Izvestia that the pardon is a “caricature of democracy.”