In addition to Joe Biden, what other US presidents have granted pardons to their relatives during their terms?

Joe Biden’s farewell to the White House continues to be controversial.

After allowing Ukraine to use the long-range missiles that it has supplied against Russian territory, now the president of the United States has surprised by granting it a “total and unconditional pardon” to his son Hunter, who was waiting to hear the sentences in the two criminal cases for which he was convicted.

“I hope that Americans understand why a father and a President would make this decision,” the president declared on Sunday when announcing the measure with which he said he would correct “an error of justice”.

However, the Democrat is not the first ruler to adopt a similar decision throughout the more than 200 years of history that this country has.

The revered Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the first American president known to have used the constitutional prerogative to commute sentences or terminate trials to benefit a relative.

In December 1863, the president granted the so-called “presidential pardon” to Emily Todd Helm, who was half-sister of his wife, Mary Todd.

What was the reason for the pardon? Todd Helm, 26, was the wife of General Benjamin Hardin Helm, who had fought on the side of the Confederates in the Civil War, which was then bleeding the country, wrote American historian Ron Soodalter in an article published in the newspaper “The New York Times”.

At the beginning of the conflict, Lincoln offered Helm a position in the Union army. However, the uniformed man, a native of the southern state of Kentucky, rejected the proposal.

But Helm not only rejected the presidential offer, but also joined the cause that opposed the president’s plans to abolish slavery and that sought to separate the southern states of the United States to create a new country.

The general’s decision earned him being described as a “traitor” from Washington.

However, in September 1863, General Helm fell in combat and, upon hearing the news, the president, visibly moved, decided to invite the widow to the White House.

“Mr. Lincoln and my sister received me with the warmest affection.”Todd Helm wrote in his diary.

“At first, we were too distraught to speak. “I lost my husband, they lost their beautiful little son Willie, and Mary and I lost three brothers in Confederate service,” the widow added.

The day after the meeting, the woman received a letter written in the president’s handwriting, in which he granted her a total pardon, Soodalter said.

Lincoln made the decision even though the widow never signed the Oath of Allegiancea requirement demanded by Washington from the defeated Confederates to obtain pardon.

The next case of a president pardoning a family member occurred more than 150 years after Lincoln used that power on behalf of his sister-in-law.

In January 2001, on his last day in the White House, outgoing President Bill Clinton signed 140 pardonsbut one of them caused controversy because it was addressed to a relative: his younger half-brother, Roger Clinton.

Roger, who is the son of the president’s father, Roger Clinton, and nurse Virginia Dell Cassidy, is a musician and television actor.

Over the years, the half-brother of today’s former president has caused headlines, but not for his professional career, but for his behavior. Thus, in 1985 he was arrested and convicted on two charges related to drug trafficking (conspire to distribute cocaine and distribute cocaine).

However, these criminal records were expunged from Clinton’s records thanks to a presidential pardon, reads the US Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney page.

The decision caused a stir, since throughout Clinton’s presidency (1993-2001) his half-brother was involved in several controversial events.

The historian Robert Watson, in his book Life in the White House: A Social History of the First Family and The President’s House (Living in the White House: The Social History of the First Family and the Presidential House), recalled that Clinton received watches from the children of Rosario Gambino, the imprisoned leader of a mafia clan.

Likewise, she reported that the problematic artist even advocated for her and dozens of other people to be released from prison before different judicial institutions and also before her brother.

Some of these allegations ended up being investigated by Congress at the beginning of the century, the American network CNN reported at the time.

On December 23, 2020, Donald Trump, who had just lost re-election to Biden, signed 26 pardons.

Among those who benefited was Charles Kushner, father-in-law of his daughter, Ivanka. This is how it reads on the page of the Office of the Pardon Attorney of the Department of Justice.

Jared Kushner’s father, who was a White House adviser during Trump’s first presidency, He was sentenced in 2004 to two years in prison for tax evasion, irregular financing of electoral campaigns and witness tampering, the BBC reported.

The witness tampering charges arose after it became known that Kushner retaliated against his sister’s husband, William Schulder, who was cooperating with authorities against him.

As the businessman himself admitted to justice, he hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, recorded the meeting and sent it to his sister.

At the end of last November, Trump announced that Kushner was his candidate to be ambassador to France.

“He is a great business leader, philanthropist and negotiator, who will be a firm defender of our country and its interests”wrote the president-elect in his Truth Social account.

The now candidate for ambassador donated more than a million dollars to the Trump campaign, revealed the London newspaper “The Guardian.”

The presidential power to pardon crimes or commute sentences was proposed in 1787 by Alexander Hamilton, who considered that it could help “restore the tranquility of the commonwealth” in times of rebellion.

Thus, section 2 of article 2 of the Constitution established that the president “shall be empowered to suspend the execution of sentences and to grant pardons in the case of crimes against the United States, except in cases of accusation for official responsibilities.”

The concept was not new: English laws had long granted monarchs the power to grant clemency to their subjects, and the practice extended to the governors of the British colonies in America.

The first to exercise this power was George Washingtonwho in 1795 pardoned two men who orchestrated the so-called “Whiskey Rebellion,” an insurrection against the government’s decision to impose a tax on this alcoholic beverage.

Back to the present, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine counts of federal tax fraud in September, for which he faced up to 17 years in prison.

And before, in June, another court found him guilty of three serious crimes related to the purchase of a weapon, for which he faced a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.

The sentences for these cases were scheduled for on December 12 and 16.

However, his father’s decision saves him from ending up behind bars.

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