STORY: Outgoing Biden pardons his son
SHOOTING TIME: Dec. 1, 2024/July 26, 2024
DATELINE: Dec. 2, 2024
LENGTH: 00:00:45
LOCATION: Washington D.C.
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. screen print of Biden's statement
2. various of Biden departing the White House alongside his son Hunter Biden (Shooting time: July 26, 2024)

STORYLINE:

U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden on Sunday night, reversing his earlier stance of not using executive power to pardon or reduce his son's sentence.
   
"From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department's decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted," Biden said in a statement.

Biden said that Hunter was "treated differently" and that political opponents in Congress "instigated" the charges "to attack me and oppose my election."
   
"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," the president said.
   
Hunter Biden was convicted in June for purchasing a firearm in 2018 while addicted to crack cocaine. This marks the first time a sitting president's child has been convicted of a crime. He was set to be sentenced on Dec. 12. 
   
The president's son was also scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16 for federal tax evasion charges, to which he pleaded guilty in September. The tax case involved over 1.4 million U.S. dollars in unpaid taxes.
   
Special counsel David Weiss, who served as United States Attorney for the District of Delaware under former U.S. President Donald Trump, launched an investigation into Hunter Biden in 2018 and brought indictments for the tax and gun charges in 2023.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Washington D.C.
(XHTV)