Can Donald Trump overturn Hunter Biden’s presidential pardon? | World News

The president’s pardon angered both rivals and allies, and some Democrats were divided over the decision. While US President-elect Donald Trump called the decision “a miscarriage of justice,” Democratic Governor Jared Polis accused the president of “putting his family above the nation.”

Trump is set to take office as the 47th President of the United States in January, and the question remains: Can Hunter Biden’s presidential pardon be revoked by the Trump administration?

When US presidents revoked pardons

Because the charges against Hunter Biden are federal in nature, Joe Biden was able to order a full pardon for his son. The U.S. Constitution gives the president the power to pardon federal prosecutors, but there is no provision in the Constitution that allows a president to revoke or reverse the pardon.

However, there is a gray area when it comes to presidential pardons: They can be revoked if they have not been officially delivered.

According to documents from the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. Congress’s research arm, then-outgoing President Andrew Johnson pardoned a prisoner in June, and incoming President Ulysses S. Grant revoked the pardon, a decision upheld by the Federal Court.

In the 1869 case report published by the CRS, the judge was quoted as saying: “The law undoubtedly states that there is no power to revoke a pardon when it has been executed, any more than there is any power to revoke any other act when it has been completed. “”

The case also highlighted that the pardon can be revoked until it is served.

A more recent example would be President George W. Bush granting and then revoking a full pardon of a real estate developer on fraud charges in 2008. Isaac Robert Toussie, who was convicted of making false statements to a government agency and mail fraud, was one of the 19 people pardoned by George Bush in December 2008.

However, Bush decided to revoke the pardon a day later after discovering that Toussie had donated $30,800 to Republicans, The New York Times reported. Bush’s Justice Department argued that the president could revoke the pardon because the recipient “did not receive official notice of the president’s action,” the report said.

In both cases, the presidential pardon was revoked due to non-delivery of formal notice of the decision.

Can Hunter Biden’s pardon be overturned?

In the 2008 case, Bush was able to revoke the pardon just one day after it was granted to Toussie before it was finally decided.

In the case of Hunter Biden, the new Trump regime will not be able to revoke his pardon because it has already been finalized by the courts, Newsweek reported. Biden’s sentencing was scheduled to take place later this month, but the hearing was ultimately canceled after the courts recognized the pardon granted by Joe Biden.

However, Donald Trump was vocal in his criticism of the pardon and asked Biden whether the same rules would be applied to the “January 6 hostages,” referring to the Trump supporters who stormed Congress after the 2021 election.