President Joe Biden‘s press secretary was grilled by journalists aboard Air Force One on Monday morning as she tried to defend his decision to pardon his son after spending months saying he would not use his position to get Hunter Biden off the hook.
Karine Jean-Pierre found herself in the firing line because she had also repeatedly said the president would not pardon his son of tax and gun crimes.
‘Could those statements now be seen as lies [by] the American people?’ she was asked during the flight to Angola.
‘Is there really a credibility issue here, given now this announcement?’
Jean-Pierre insisted that the president was a truthful man who only reached his decision at the weekend, as he said in his Sunday statement.
‘First of all, one of the things that the president always believes is to be truthful to the American people,’ she said. ‘That is something that he always truly believes.’
The decision has triggered a firestorm of anger, that was only intensified by the decision to make the announcement just before Biden embarked on a trip to Africa, ensuring that he could avoid tricky questions.
President-elect Donald Trump quickly seized on the announcement to ask whether it extended to people imprisoned after the Jan. 6 attack on Congress.
Karine Jean-Pierre found herself in the firing line because she had also repeatedly said the president would not pardon his son of tax and gun crimes
President Joe Biden spent Thanksgiving with his son Hunter before announcing his decision on Sunday evening, shortly before flying to Angola
And his aides said it proved their point that the Department of Justice was no longer fit for purpose.
Jean-Pierre desperately tried to cling to an argument that Biden still had faith in the justice system even if it had let down his son.
‘Two things could be true,’ she said. ‘The president does believe in the justice system and Department of Justice, and he also believes that his son was singled out politically.’
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in September to federal tax charges and was due to be sentenced on Dec. 16.
A jury found him guilty in June of making false statements on a gun background check; he was due to be sentenced for those charges this month as well.
The president said in June that he would not pardon his son. He was asked during an interview with ABC News whether he would rule out pardoning Hunter and answered: ‘Yes.’
Jean-Pierre delivered the same message over and over again.
In July 2023, the White House press secretary was asked if there might be any possibility that Biden would pardon his son.
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‘No,’ she replied bluntly. When a Fox News journalist attempted a followup, she cut him off.
‘I just said no,’ she said before moving on to another reporter.
As recently as Nov. 8, just after Trump won the election, she ruled out the idea. ‘We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is “no,”‘ she said.
In all, she denied the possibility on at least six different occasions.
That all came undone on Sunday. Biden issued a statement saying that his son had been selectively prosecuted and treated differently than others with similar situations.
Jean-Pierre defended the decision, saying Hunter would be pursued by political opponents.
‘They would continue to go after his son,’ she told reporters on Air Force One.
