An old post on X from President Joe Biden went viral on Monday after the commander in chief issued a pardon for his son, Hunter, despite vowing he wouldn’t.
The tweet in question was from May and had been directed at now-President-elect Donald Trump.
“No one is above the law,” Biden wrote at the time—a message that was slapped with a community note on Monday.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know: On December 1, 2024, President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for crimes covering nearly 11 years of “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.
No one is above the law.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 31, 2024
Community Notes slays pic.twitter.com/QNZfUIcNPl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2024
This aged like fine milk. https://t.co/ustn6rqpvG
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 2, 2024
When he said, “No one is above the law,” what he really meant to say was, “No one is above the law unless it’s my son or the millions of immigrants entering the country illegally" lol https://t.co/VVwjADQaMj
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) December 2, 2024
In a message about his decision, Biden said Hunter would be pardoned for "offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024."
"For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth," Biden said in his statement. "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."
