How Biden could keep Hunter out of jail without breaking no pardon pledge

President Joe Biden vowed not to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, following his recent conviction in a felony gun trial, but the president still technically maintains another clemency avenue to help his only surviving son avoid jail time.

Since 2021, Joe Biden has utilized his presidential clemency powers 154 times, split into 24 pardons and 130 commutations. While a pardon would wipe away all or some consequences of a felony conviction, a commutation results in a reduced sentence.

Judge Maryellen Noreika, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, has yet to set a sentencing date following Hunter Biden’s June conviction. He is facing up to 25 years in prison but is expected to face a significantly shorter sentence as he is a first-time offender.

Joe Biden said in a statement Tuesday that he would “accept” the outcome of the trial and emphasized his past promise not to pardon his son. Yet, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dodged a number of questions about the president’s specific language Wednesday and whether a commutation might still be “on the table” for the president’s son.

“I have not spoken to the president about this, and what I’m saying is he was asked about a pardon. He was asked about the trial specifically, and he answered it very clearly,” she said in one exchange. “I don’t have anything beyond what the president said.”

Multiple veteran Democratic operatives familiar with the Biden team’s thinking told the Washington Examiner that Jean-Pierre’s answer was more about “not getting ahead” of the president or Hunter Biden’s own sentencing than it was about any specific responses to said sentence.

“President Biden and this White House respect the rule of law, and there’s a process that needs to play out here,” one strategist explained. “The press wants to take Karine’s words and turn that into a new story when in reality, the president and his team don’t want to influence the judge’s sentencing.”

“This is something that we’ve seen on multiple occasions from the Biden White House over the years: Simple caution when dealing with reporters. I’d expect Karine to know that this is a personal matter for President Biden and something he’d want to clarify on his own,” a second strategist explained.

Two other Democratic operatives predicted that Joe Biden himself would clarify that his vow not to pardon Hunter Biden includes not commuting his sentence once he returns from Italy. One of those people indicated that the president is currently focused on maintaining coordination with other G7 leaders regarding the war in Ukraine.

Biden will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Thursday and the pair will hold a joint press conference immediately following their discussion.

“We all know that President Biden cares deeply for his son and that this process has weighed heavily on the family, but let’s be honest here for a second. It’s extremely unlikely that Hunter Biden’s sentence will involve any serious jail time, and there’s no way the president would risk influencing voters ahead of November just to help his son get out of a little bit of trouble,” one strategist predicted. “Hunter is an adult. He’s battled through his demons, but the problems he faces now are of his own doing and far outweigh the danger the country faces if Trump wins in November. The whole Biden family recognizes that fact.”

Jordan Rubin, a legal expert and writer of NBC News’s Deadline: Legal Blog, similarly wrote that Joe Biden’s vow not to pardon his son was likely a blanket statement referring to all clemency actions.

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“The notion that the president’s preemptive stance on a pardon was seemingly rooted in not wanting to appear as if he would give preferential treatment. Of course, vowing not to pardon a certain defendant ahead of time is actually giving the president’s son worse-than-average treatment because it involves prejudging his eligibility before he has served any time or, obviously, submitted a clemency application,” Rubin claimed. “That aside, if the president’s reasoning behind ruling out a pardon is of the no-one-is-above-the-law variety, then taking any action in his son’s favor could cut against that.

However, Rubin did say that the president could issue a commutation for his son if Judge Noreika gives him a “truly draconian” sentence that goes beyond the typical sentencing guidelines.