>> good evening, i'm jonathan capehart, we continue our breaking news coverage out of washington this evening, joe biden has issued a pardon for his son, hunter who pleaded guilty to tax evasion in california, president biden had

said repeatedly that he would not use his executive authority to pardon his son or commute his sentence. as nbc news 1st reported tonight, the president changed his mind over the holiday weekend and a short while ago, resident biden put out a defiant statement that reads, no reasonable person who looks at the facts of hunters cases can reach any other conclusion that hunter was singled out only because he was my son and that is wrong. hunter has been 5 1/2 years sober even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution, and they have tried to break hunter and they have tried to break me and there is no reason to believe it will stop here. enough is enough. hunter biden issued a statement of his own, stating, i have

admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction, mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political support. despite this, i have maintained my sobriety for more than five years because of my deep faith and the unwavering love and support of my family and friends. hunter biden continued, in the throes of addiction, i squandered many opportunities and advantages. in recovery, we can be given the opportunity to make amends where possible and rebuild our lives if we never take for granted the mercy that we have been afforded. 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. the pardon comes ahead of hunter biden's december 12th sentencing for his conviction on federal gun charges, hunter biden is set to be sentenced in a separate criminal case, on december 16th after pleading guilty in september on federal

tax evasion charges. joining me now is nbc news white house correspondent, mike, thank you very much for being here on this breaking news coverage. can you bring us up to speed, how and when did this change of mind on the pardon, about for the president? >> that is an important question because some of the reaction indicates that this is a president misrepresenting what he said in the past, i think it's very clear that the circumstances continue to evolve in perhaps one of the most important dynamics that changed in the past month, the election as donald trump as the next president of the united states, we have been reporting about the possibility of this pardon for some time and this decision was ultimately one that held to as close as it possibly could and was an ongoing conversation between father and son over the course

of the last few weeks. i traveled with the president to and from nantucket, he spent the week thereto mark the thanksgiving holiday which has been a sacred family tradition over the last five decades, since the death of his first wife and infant daughter when he would begin taking beau biden and hunter biden to the holidays, over the years, this has evolved into a much larger gathering, they have rituals which include a polar plunge and time spending playing games with the family. this was a much more intimate affair, it was just the president, the first lady, hunter and his wife melissa, and it was very clear that the president and his son had an extended time to talk about, to

continue what has been an ongoing conversation about what is the right thing to do. there are a lot of considerations about the political consequences, there is certainly thought and great care about what the president was doing here, but ultimately, you know president biden so well, i have covered him for 17 years, everything comes down to family for this president and this was something that ultimately they decided it was in the best interest personally for hunter biden and as the president who is now just 51 days from handing off the white house to president-elect donald trump, this is certainly going to be one of the most significant acts he takes as a father, and obviously as a president as well. >> i'm sitting here thinking about the fact that president biden is maybe one of the last institutionalist there is in washington, so this is a monumental decision no matter who he's going to pardon for

the president. how concerned do you think the biden family is about prosecution from the incoming trump justice department? i ask because the now president-elect made no secret when he was a candidate for president that he was going to turn the justice department into a weapon against his political opponents, naming specifically the clintons and the bidens. >> yes, certainly this has been a concern of the biden team about what this means in terms of what the next administration might do. i thought it was notable what we have seen so far in terms of reaction from the trump team, the president-elect spokesperson issuing, i find a really fascinating statement, in which he sidesteps the question, let's just put it

this way, we are not seeing the hyperbolic rhetoric from the trump team that we have seen from house committee chairman like james comey for instance, i will read a statement, which is, the failed witch-hunt has proven that the democratic- controlled doj and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system. the system needs to be restored. that indicates this is not the knee-jerk criticism you might expect from the incoming president and in fact, the president-elect prior to the election day itself even used an interview himself that he might even consider pardoning hunter biden, interesting at this point. >> mike memoli, thank you very much for that report, joining is the state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave, thank you for joining me this

evening. give me your initial reaction to president biden pardoning his son, hunter. >> i'm not surprised, i'm a little surprised it happened this soon, i thought it would be closer to when biden left the white house but the writing was on the wall when he received a 52 page report from the lawyer who said specifically why this prosecution was unique, why it was selective prosecution and targeted because his name is hunter biden. as a prosecutor, i doubt that these charges would ever have been brought against a guy named hunter smith, it was because he is the son of the president.>> so, the criticism coming at the president, president biden right now, particularly from some on the right, some saying that the president lied because the president did say many times over the last year, particularly during the campaign that he would not

pardon his son. can you talk to me, should the president be fearful, should democrats be fearful of political blowback as a result of the decision here? >> yes, you know in politics, you can never lie if you are a democrat. the other guys, go ahead, let's not pretend we are living in the pre-trump political world. i know that biden is an institutionalist that you are dealing with the current president-elect being someone who continues to lie about the 2020 election and still thinks he won california. i get it why people are going to be upset with joe biden but on the other hand, when he was saying he would not pardon, i think he meant it because he thought that he or, harris would be president, didn't expect president trump to return to the white house, didn't expect kash patel to be

the fbi director, he is protecting his son from the wolves on the other side. you want to leave your son to the care of the donald trump justice department? and the other guy pardon his daughters father-in-law and not only pardoned but made him ambassador, the other guy pardoned steve bannon, even after he stole money from his own supporters. so if you want to call me out for pardoning my own son, do so. he's just about out of caring right now.>> one of the things, i think you just mentioned it, one of the knocks that trump and his supporters have against president biden is that he has weaponized law enforcement against donald trump. the senior magazine writer for political magazine wrote a piece on why he felt the president shouldn't pardon hunter to grant him some sort

of clemency. and he wrote this and he makes the same point you just made, this is not to excuse any of his comments, but the gun charges have almost no real precedent in the conduct underlying the charges usually resolved by the justice department through repayment or fines. he writes, the reason we are here is because trump and his republican allies successfully pressured joe biden's own justice department to prosecute his son. >> i agree, merrick garland has been accused of weaponizing the department of justice, nothing is farther from the truth. not only did he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate hunter biden, he appointed a republican who was an appointee of donald trump, a u.s. attorney under donald trump. then he let the prosecution happen and if his name were not hunter biden, it is almost, it

is so rare, it never happens that somebody is prosecuted for buying a gun while under the throes of addiction unless that gun was used in a crime but it is a standalone crime, so it almost never happens. likewise in california, in the tax charges, it is rare when you are facing criminal charges versus just having to pay back the taxes plus a penalty. hunter biden was treated differently and part of it is because merrick garland wanted to show the world that he was evenhanded and in doing so, he treated the presidents son in a way that nobody else would have treated him. >> thank you very much for joining me this evening, now let's go to carol lee, she joins me by phone, bring me up to speed on this nbc news breaking the story about president biden pardoning his son, hunter. >> yeah, we learned about this being in the works for some time

, essentially that the president had not taken off the table the idea of granting his son clemency, even though he has said for months that he would not take that step. however, this decision, the final decision was made only this past weekend according to our sources and the president then after returning to washington informs them of his decision and they went through with the statement and getting things in order, the paperwork to make it happen so he could announce tonight, and it is very intentional that it is coming before the sentencing that is supposed to take place on december 12th, because that is obviously something that the president, if he was planning to do this which he was, would want to get ahead of. and look,

it's already getting a lot of blowback from republicans who are saying that this is just more evidence of the biden crime family and if the president is coming under criticism for it, however according to our reporting, that does not outweigh his feelings about needing to pardon his son. 82 years old, in the final weeks of his presidency, he does not plan on running another election, he didn't ultimately run for re-election last month and this is personal, that he and his family decided was the right one to do. at the same time, the president is also blaming the justice system for the way that his son was unfairly targeted. >> let me get you on one more thing, you mentioned at the

beginning of your report that this has been in the works for a while, and granting this pardon, before the december 12th sentencing was intentional, why not wait? does the reporting say why they decided not to wait until those sentencing hearings? >> i think that the idea was that it would be almost as if it was going through a motion, or just ultimately not going to be necessary. and it would be another hearing that hunter biden would have to attend and it's just not something from our understanding, based on our reporting that the president and his family felt like was worth going through the motions, ultimately he was going to get to this place. >> thank you very much for coming on and getting us that report. stick with us for more

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>> we are back with continuing coverage after president biden issued a pardon for his son hunter biden, i'm joined by carol lam, former united states attorney for the southern district of california, thank you for being here. is what president biden did today, in pardoning his son unusual given what hunter biden pleaded guilty to? >> i think it is unusual if you look at the history of what has happened with respect to pardons, in terms of the timing and the closeness of the relationship, although it is not unprecedented. but, what i think is happening here to some extent, president biden must have been influenced to some extent to the fact that the incoming department of justice under president-elect trump is going to be likely

staffed in the upper positions by people who were on the defense team for donald trump, so this has become highly politicized and highly personal and basically by not pardoning his son, what he would be doing is leaving a lot of unknowns out there because the sentencing that were to occur in december, in this month of hunter biden, that is not going to end all the prosecution of hunter biden in the sense that both sides can appeal sentences and likely hunter biden would be appealing his conviction after trial in the gun case. there are a lot of discretionary's, subjective calls that have to be made in the future by what will be a future donald trump department of justice and i think to a large extent, president biden was not comfortable leaving the door open.>> and for those of us who are not attorneys and those watching, can the incoming drop -- trump justice

department overturn or reverse this pardon? >> no, under the constitution, a presidential pardon is a final decision, there is no overturning that decision. the pardon itself will be the pardon that remains in place under the constraints that are put in the pardon. for example in this case, he said for any actions occurring between 2014 and the present, so that is not just with respect to these targets but any potential federal charges that he could be investigated for that occurred between 2014 and 2020, that is an irreversible decision that cannot be overturned by a future president but it applies only to federal cases, not state cases. >> i'm being told that donald trump has issued a statement on his social media platform, and the moment i will get it i will

read some of it. there has been a question about the timing of the president's decision, why do it now as opposed to waiting until december 12th in delaware and december 16th in california when hunter biden was to go for hearings and faith sentencing. what do you make of that line of questioning? >> that is a decision that doesn't surprise me, sentencing is public, they can often be messy and i expect that since resident biden did make the decision now to pardon his son, it was just unnecessary to go through that debate, let's just get it over with now. that decision does not surprise me. >> carol lam, thank you very much for joining us this evening and giving us your insight into night's news that president biden has granted a

pardon to his son hunter. let's go to nbc news senior investigative producer and story editor, sarah fitzpatrick, thank you for being with us this evening. you are one of two people on this big story, you broke this story this evening that president biden would be pardoning his son hunter. when i spoke to carol, she said you have been working on this for a long time. how long have you been working on this and take us through the winding road that got the president from the point of saying no, to doing just that tonight. >> it has been a long and winding road, and i don't think anyone including the president knew exactly how this would transpire up until today. we have been on this story for many months, we learned from some of our sources that shortly after hunter biden was

convicted in june on the gun charges that there were discussions between the president and his aide about the possibility of pardoning his son. although he remained in public stating that the option was off the table, he said that multiple times at the white house even as early as this week, indicating there would be no pardon. but this was a long option that was hanging out on the table and i think there was something that was both incredibly personal as a decision for the president to make and a decision for hunter to make, to agree to. and i think it was a long time coming and had been a carefully guarded secret, not secret but a carefully -- those discussions were so private. even this weekend in nantucket when the family gathered, our understanding that the family had very private discussions,

not discussing with outside advisers or lawyers, it was a very personal decision up until the very end. i think there's a couple things that played into this, one is that obviously the incoming trump administration, there was an element of real concern about what would happen to hunter biden, the special counsel remains in place, there could be additional charges coming, the special counsel's office has been continuing to take actions as they have continued to pursue other cases around hunter biden. and secondly there was a real concern about his safety, once he loses his -- what would this also potentially do, would it put a target on his back? i think it was a careful decision but ultimately, the president made it today.

>> you may have just answered this in your response, but i'm going to ask again, how concerned do you think the president was about the fate of his son, with the incoming justice department of donald trump? especially considering not just who his attorney general pick is, but the top three positions in doj under the attorney general, or his three personal attorneys in this case. >> i think there was absolutely a high level of concern about what this would look like, what the targeting of the biden family, not just hunter but other individuals, the president and his allies have indicated that in the past and in a justice department that would potentially be losing some of those career attorneys, some of those guardrails might not be in place. so i think that was absolutely

an element of concern, that is why you see the wording the way it is, up until today's date, which would eliminate any other potential charges that the special counsel had not brought up until this point and i think that was a real legitimate concern for all parties involved. >> sarah fitzpatrick, thank you very much for that report. more on the breaking news after a quick break. so delic fresh. with better nutrition, too. we love our eggs any style. as long as they're the best. eggland's best. philip: when your kid is hurting and there's nothing you can do about it, that's the worst feeling in the world. kristen: i don't think anybody ever expects to hear that their child has cancer. it's always one of those things that happens to somebody else,

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enjoy the same 50 days of continuous scent as febreze plug, including a cord for flexible placement options... and a boost button for extra scent. new febreze plug scent booster. ♪ lalalalala. ♪ >> we are back with breaking news out of the white house, just hours ago, president biden announced he is pardoning his son hunter who was found guilty of gun related charges in delaware and pleaded guilty to tax evasion in california. the president released a statement reading, there has been an effort to break hunter who has been 5 1/2 years sober even in the face of unrelenting

attacks. and in trying to break hunter, they have tried to break me and there's no reason to believe it will stop here, enough is enough. and donald trump posted on his truth social account, does the pardon given by joe to hunter include the j6 hostages who have now been in prison for years? such an abuse and miscarriage of justice. mike memoli joins me now, mike , you were traveling with the president during this thanksgiving holiday weekend, was there any indication that this news was coming? >> well, i think we all can look back and interpret things differently that i saw over the course of the last four days in nantucket and on air force one coming back last night, the thing that stuck out to me before we were able to break this news, the larger biden

clan is sometimes what they are called, they were not together in the way they usually are over the holiday, and we know that naomi, the granddaughter is pregnant and due any week now and perhaps that was one reason why the larger family wasn't there, or they are planning for a larger christmas gathering at the white house for the last white house christmas this year but ultimately i think it is very significant that as the conversations around this pardon based on carol and sarah's reporting were very much between father and son for the most part. they did have an extensive period of time together, i know because i saw walking around this afternoon that hunter was likely still at the white house today, the president held a public event to mark world a.i.d.s. day. it'll be interesting, we are

going to have our first visuals in just about one hour, i can hear the helicopters circling the white house me, the president is scheduled to depart the white house to make his way to the air force base to fly to angola where he is scheduled to be for the next several days. an important overseas trip, the first visit to angola by a sitting president, reporters will try to ask the president before he borders about this development, it'll be interesting to see whether he takes those questions. one thing that is important also as we look at the legal and the personal in this breaking news story, one is that the pardon language itself is very important, one that has been overlooked, this is not just a pardon for those two specific cases, the case in delaware on gun charges, in which hunter biden was found guilty by a jury and the other tax related charges in california were ultimately

hunter biden pled guilty. the pardon is for any and all crimes committed starting january 1st, 2014 through december 1st, 2024, more than 10 years that includes and begins just months before hunter biden joined the board, of course that ukrainian energy company, that is significant in terms of what we were talking about earlier because as the president was weighing the potential of the trump led justice department, to potentially expand these investigations into hunter biden, that covers what had been an area in which the u.s. attorney in delaware who ultimately became a special counsel or that special counsel status to investigate hunter biden was investigating violations of foreign lobbying rules. and the personal front, the sentencing was scheduled in delaware on december 12th and in california on december 16th, you know so well, the holiday

season is one of mixed emotions for the biden family, december 18th is the anniversary of the accident that hunter was seriously injured in, in 1972, as a two-year-old, his mother was killed and his baby sister also killed and his brother was seriously injured. that anniversary is a very sacred time and i think the confluence of the sentencing in the middle of that was adding to the emotion of the moment, emotion that was very visible when we heard from the president and first lady earlier today, when they talked about losing loved ones and the pain never really goes away.>> mike memoli, thank you. we will be right back.

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man, my guess is that donald trump probably would have been pardoning hunter if he was associated with russians, but i do believe at this time, what we are seeing with this pardon, what you see with donald trump spewing that ridiculousness because we know exactly what happened on january 6, and those thousands of individuals that had been arrested, and i saw that data, but what we are seeing tonight is somebody who was pardoned after his addiction was weaponized . how ridiculous they were also, again, not only was i on the j6 committee but i also did the forensics on the data from hunters laptop that went out onto the web, so i got to see the forensics, i got to read it

all, i got to see everything, do all the research, and i have to say, i think this pardon is well done and needed to happen. >> what do you make of the contention among republicans out there, and others, who believe that the president made the wrong decision and that the president lied when he said earlier this year, multiple occasions, that he was not going to pardon his son. >> you know, actually i thought about that when the pardon happened, and conditions have changed, what you see from the president and his administration , with people like charles kushner who was pardoned, a part of trump's family, when you see all the people he pardoned and how hunter was treated, i think when president biden was making those purposes, i don't think he foresaw the weaponization that would happen on the gun case. also when you are looking at

what is going on right now, when you are looking at addiction or what is happening with families, after all the biden family has been through, especially when hunter's addiction was accelerated by what the family has gone through, i think it is unbelievably hypocritical and almost ludicrous to the point of laughter that you have anybody out there talking about hypocrisy, when you are talking about specific harms, you just shake your head. it's what steve bannon talked about. >> denver riggleman, thank you for being here with me this evening. we are joined by anthony coley.

>> i'm relieved and thrilled that he did it, this was one of the cases that called out clemency, hunter biden first of all would not ever be prosecuted for the gun crime, but for his last name. second of all, he was addicted and that was a cause of his actions, he has now been sober for many years and this is a time when it is really appropriate for a grant of clemency. i hope that president biden will also issue preemptive pardons to all of those people threatened by the injustice of what will become the department of justice in the trump administration, that includes jack smith and all of his staff, many department of justice lawyers, it includes president biden himself, although we don't know that anyone can legally pardon

themselves. he will need a pardon because he is going to be harassed and charged for no crimes whatsoever. donald trump has promised.>> anthony, to pick up on that, do you think that what played into the president's decision here is to protect his son from an incoming trump justice department that we see from the appointments, the people he has named, i'm thinking of the top three under the ag positions, all of his criminal attorneys in his cases. his to say they would go after hunter? >> jonathan, you hit the nail on the head, if we step back, what we really have right now, we have a father and son conditional love for his son, and then we have a recognition by this white house that donald trump is putting pieces in place to do exactly what he said he would do, to use the

justice department to go after his perceived political enemies. if you are joe biden, why would you leave your son exposed in that way? and i just want to rewind the tape if i can, how we got here was in january or february of 2021, joe biden's white house, the white house counsel asked the justice department to keep david weiss on as u.s. attorney, to continue this investigation and they did so, i didn't talk with them about it, but they did it to avoid the appearance of impropriety. so that is where we are now, at the end of his term, we have pam bondi, as you mentioned, one of those individuals, the former florida attorney general who is going to be the nation's top law enforcement officer who

is an election denier, that is even beyond the pale of the conservative, or beyond the actions of the conservative attorney general, william barr. if you are joe biden and you are looking at all of these pieces coming together, he did the right thing. and one last thing, i know we are tight on time, imagine if donald trump, if his justice department said they were going to investigate their own son, they would not have done what joe biden and his justice department did, donald trump would have burned down the justice department before they would have kept on an obama era attorney general. >> anthony coley , thank you

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>> we are back with the breaking news out of the white house, president biden has announced he pardoned his son, hunter. joining me now is charles coleman junior, host of the charles coleman podcast, thank you for being here. the president said, multiple times over this last year on the campaign trail that he would not pardon his son and now you have a lot of critics and a lot of republican members of congress saying that he lied. what do you make of that criticism of the president?>> i won't go as far to say that the president lied but this is a big blow to the notion of what it is to have a two tiered

justice system in america, when you are looking at the decision to pardon hunter biden, one of the most important things that has to be examined, and mike talked about this earlier, the length of time in which this pardon covers, it's not just the crimes he was convicted of but also essentially a 10 year span, when you are talking about that, it does raise the question as to whether this is about the court of law or somewhat political theater, i think that president biden understands that being a lame- duck president, he's going to have to contend with criticism and this is something he was comfortable doing but i also don't think the statements that he brought us early on the campaign trail can be taken without some degree of skepticism. >> and let me read to you the social media post that donald trump put out, he basically asked of the president, does your pardon of hunter extend to the j6 hostages?

your reaction to that. >> listen, this is something that comes from an unserious person and unserious tweet and unserious sentiment, at the end of the day, these are not even apples to oranges, these are apples to automobiles, the comparison is ludicrous but at the same time, this is the unfortunate downside to what we are talking about, this is opening the door to these political pardons in such a way that it will be hard for democrats and others to critique anything that donald trump does on the scale, even if he does not have the justification to do it, that is one of the unfortunate side effects for what we see with respect to this pardon in this moment. >> but charles, we have already seen in his first term who he pardoned, mike flynn comes to mind, paul manafort, steve bannon, a couple others, charles kushner, who is now his designee to be the ambassador to france so isn't that horse

already out of the barn? >> in some respects it is, that is a fair point to make, at the end of the day what we are having a conversation about is how much we can trust and have confidence in our democratic institutions and our judicial system. unfortunately when you have this conversation about hunter biden, it becomes an issue where people on both sides have to question that and that is something that we don't want because we need to have confidence in these institutions.>> right, we need to have constitution -- confidence in these institutions. that does it for our breaking news coverage this hour, i'm jonathan capehart , have a good night. t, bik biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people—whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill,

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breaking news this hour, exclusive nbc news reporting tells us that president biden has decided