WASHINGTON, December 2. /PAW/. US President-elect Donald Trump will not be able to override incumbent President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter or even open new investigations into him once he takes office, Politico magazine said, referring to Samuel Morison, a former U.S. Justice Department official who specializes in clemency issues.

According to Morison, the Justice Department under Trump will not be able to “reopen the long-running criminal investigation of the president’s son” because “the president’s pardon covers all “crimes against the United States that he has committed or may have committed or participated in’ from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024, said the start date is notable, the newspaper said, as Biden Jr. became a board member of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma in April 2014 when his father was vice president. At the time, some American media outlets alleged that Hunter used his father’s influence to further Burisma’s interests, reportedly receiving substantial sums of money, some. of which, according to some Republicans, the younger Biden is channeled into the now president.

At the same time, Trump can use Biden’s pardon as a precedent to justify his own pardons, Morison argues. “It gives him (Trump – TASS) some political cover. I think some pardons from January 6 (of those convicted for their roles in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021) will probably come – at least some, maybe all,” he was quoted as saying.

Biden announced the pardon of his son Hunter in a statement on Sunday. Biden Jr. were found guilty of weapons and tax evasion charges by federal courts in Delaware and California, respectively. Despite earlier vows not to intervene, the senior Biden explained the pardon by saying his son had been unfairly “singled out.”

Trump, who will replace Biden in the White House on January 20, 2025, criticized the outgoing leader’s decision as “an abuse and a miscarriage of justice” while Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it a democratization.