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Outgoing US president says his son was ‘selectively’ and ‘unfairly’ prosecuted due to his family name.

United States President Joe Biden has pardoned his son Hunter ahead of his sentencing on gun and tax convictions despite a previous pledge not to use his presidential powers to grant him a reprieve.

Biden said on Sunday that his son had been “singled out” and “selectively, and unfairly” prosecuted due to his family name.

“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,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

“For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further.

“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

Biden’s decision comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to face sentencing for a string of felonies related to lying about illegal drug use during a gun purchase and failing to pay at least $1.4m in taxes.

In June, Biden had flatly ruled out the possibility of granting his son a pardon or commuting his sentence.

“I said I will abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him,” Biden had said.