A judge officially ended Hunter Biden’s tax case after President Joe Biden pardoned his son, but not before harshly criticizing the president’s announcement about the clemency as misleading.
In a five-page order, Judge Mark Scarsi said that “representations contained” in Joe Biden’s news release about the pardon “stand in tension with the case record.”
The judge also said he didn’t agree with the president’s statement because it was hurtful to many public officials. He said that the pardon itself covered hours of unacceptable behavior in the future without permission.
“The President asserts that Mr. Biden ‘was treated differently’ from others ‘who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions,’ implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction,” Scarsi wrote. “But he is not.”
Scarsi, who was appointed by President-elect Donald Trump, also said that President Biden’s claim that his son was “singled out” and “treated differently” made it sound like many people in the legal system, including Scarsi and Joe Biden’s own DOJ workers, did something wrong.