Dr. Jill Biden has publicly defended the December 2024 pardon of her stepson Hunter Biden, saying she actively supported the decision and that the family feared he would be targeted by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department.
The former first lady made the remarks in a May 31 interview with correspondent Rita Braver on CBS News Sunday Morning, and again on June 1 with anchor Craig Melvin on NBC’s TODAY. The appearances represent her first extended public comments on a controversial decision that drew bipartisan criticism and rattled members of the Democratic Party. She was promoting her new memoir, “View from the East Wing: A Memoir.”
“When Trump was elected, things changed, and we knew that he would target Hunter,” Dr. Biden told Braver. She said the family “could not let our son go to jail on a charge that no one would go, I mean, no one has ever gone to jail for.”
Jill Biden’s Role in the Decision
When Braver asked whether she had urged her husband to issue the pardon, Dr. Biden was unequivocal. “I truly supported it. I wanted him to pardon Hunter at that point, and I agreed with Joe,” she said.
In the TODAY interview the following day, she described the pardon as a maternal obligation. “I did support it, of course. I’m his mother,” she told Melvin, referring to Hunter Biden — her stepson — in maternal language.
She told Melvin that former President Joe Biden “changed his mind” about intervening once it became apparent that the Justice Department would not function independently under Trump’s second administration. Asked if the former president had lost confidence in the justice system, she responded: “Yes, I guess it is, yeah.”
Hunter Biden, 56, was convicted in June 2024 of three felony charges related to his 2018 purchase of a revolver while struggling with drug addiction. Federal prosecutors demonstrated that he falsified paperwork to acquire the weapon, which he kept for 11 days. In a separate case in September 2024, he pleaded guilty to nine tax evasion charges brought by Special Counsel David Weiss. Sentencing in both cases was pending when the pardon was issued.
The full and unconditional pardon, granted in December 2024, encompassed any offenses Hunter Biden “committed or may have committed or taken part in” between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024. The expansive language provoked sharp criticism from both Republicans and Democrats who argued it contradicted the Biden administration’s repeated commitments to Justice Department independence.
A Reversal Shaped by the Election
Dr. Biden explained that the family’s thinking shifted dramatically after Trump’s victory in the November 2024 election. Before that outcome, former President Biden had consistently promised not to interfere in his son’s prosecution.
She told Braver that the family had respected traditional boundaries between the executive and judicial branches until circumstances changed. “We grew up with the three separate branches of government, hands off,” she said. “Joe would never have interfered in the Justice Department and told the Justice Department what to do and how to handle it.”
Dr. Biden’s tone represented a substantial departure from her comments following Hunter’s June 2024 conviction, when she characterized the verdict as a “tough week” and commended her stepson’s resilience without mentioning the possibility of a pardon.
She also defended former President Biden’s preemptive pardons of several other family members, which were issued in his final hours in office. She said he believed those individuals would also face retribution.
Bipartisan Criticism and Democratic Backlash
The pardon marked a dramatic reversal for a president who had anchored much of his political career on deference to institutional norms. In his December 2024 statement announcing the decision, former President Biden acknowledged his faith in the justice system but concluded that “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.” He maintained that “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.”
Weiss, who led the prosecution as special counsel, rejected the characterization in his final Justice Department report, describing the former president’s statement as “gratuitous and wrong” and dismissing what he called “false accusations” of political motivation.
Hunter Biden has stayed out of public view and, according to his father’s statement issued with the pardon, has maintained sobriety for more than five years. He continues to face questions about his business activities during his father’s tenure as vice president.
The memoir’s publication and Dr. Biden’s media appearances have drawn private frustration from some Democratic strategists, who argue that the Biden family is drawing attention the party needs as it prepares for midterm elections. The book’s release comes as Democrats work to position themselves against the second Trump administration — an effort complicated, some party operatives say, by renewed focus on the pardon controversy across cable news.
Dr. Biden indicated she harbors no second thoughts about the decision. She framed it not as a question of her husband’s political legacy but as a calculation about a son’s future — and what the family believed the coming four years would hold.
