Smug Hunter Biden ducks into Malibu sushi joint, dodges questions about controversial pardon from his dad

By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-12 23:34:07 | Updated at 2024-12-23 16:45:19 1 week ago
Truth

He’s on a roll!

A smug Hunter Biden was spotted Thursday by The Post picking up dinner at a prime Malibu sushi joint — just 11 days after his dad issued a sweeping pardon for a litany of gun, tax and other potential offenses.

The 54-year-old first son ducked into Blue Ribbon Sushi in the California surf town in the early afternoon, clad in an inconspicuous black bomber jacket, blue jeans and a trucker jacket.

Flanked by a Secret Service agent, the president’s son was expressionless and stared straight ahead — declining to answer questions about the nearly 11-year blanket grant of clemency when entering and exiting.

“Hunter, how do you feel about being pardoned by your dad?” The Post inquired.

Biden entered a Malibu sushi joint on Thursday after his controversial pardon earlier this month.Biden entered a Malibu sushi joint on Thursday after his controversial pardon earlier this month. Coleman-Rayner for NY Post

He ducked out the back of the restaurant into a waiting SUV and was ferried away by other members of his Secret Service detail.

Hunter was snapped last week smiling days after the pardon announcement while strolling out of an Arby’s in Ventura — and a little more than a week before his Dec. 12 sentencing after being convicted of three gun felonies in June.

Another sentencing hearing for his September guilty plea to evading $1.4 million in tax payments had been scheduled for Dec. 16.

President Biden also wiped away any offenses his son “committed or may have committed” between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2024, which covered years of lucrative business ventures he enjoyed with associates in Ukraine, Russia and China, among other nations, during his father’s vice presidency.

The pardon capped multi-year federal and congressional probes that brought forward damning details about Hunter invoking his father’s nameleaning on government connections and even introducing the then-vice president to his — all while raking in millions for himself, first family members and his associates.

Biden, 82, denied ever having discussed or involving himself in business matters with his son, including a more than $5 million deal with a Chinese state-linked energy conglomerate in which a 10% cut was set aside for the “big guy.”

Hunter’s business associates later testified that the moniker referred to Joe Biden — and congressional Republicans confirmed through a series of wire transfers that the former vice president had received a $40,000 check from his brother, James Biden, who received a substantial cut himself from the firm CEFC China Energy.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) accused Biden of engaging in “money laundering” via the transaction, whereas the president’s aides described the exchange as an unrelated “loan repayment.”

The first son walked away from a plea deal last year, in part because it hadn’t granted him blanket immunity from other charges — including violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which could implicate his father.

After he and White House aides repeatedly claimed there would be no interference in the prosecution, Biden, 82, shockingly reversed course and granted his son clemency.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” the president said in a Dec. 1 statement exonerating his son. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

“I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering,” Hunter said in a separate statement.

Both Republicans and Democrats — as well as Biden’s former top aide Anita Dunn, who called it an “attack on our judicial system” — have lashed out at the commander-in-chief in the wake of the decision.

Just 22% of the American public believed it was the right call and 51% disapproved of the lame-duck president’s move, according to an AP-NORC poll released earlier this week.

It’s unclear whether Biden is still considering a pardon for his brother James, though he is reportedly weighing other preemptive pardons before the end of his term.

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