About three quarters of U.S. adult citizens deem it "inappropriate" for a president to pardon their family members, according to a YouGov poll.
U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden on Sunday night, reversing his earlier stance of not using executive power to pardon his son or reduce his sentence.
Hunter was convicted in June for purchasing a firearm in 2018 while addicted to crack cocaine, marking the first time a sitting president's child has been convicted of a crime. He is set to be sentenced on Dec. 12.
He is also scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16 for federal tax evasion charges, to which he pleaded guilty in September. The charges involved over 1.4 million U.S. dollars in unpaid taxes.
This is not the first case of a U.S. president pardoning a family member.
In 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton for a 1985 cocaine-related offense. In 2020, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, his daughter Ivanka's father-in-law, who had been convicted of witness tampering, tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions.
Produced by Xinhua Global Service■
