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    Audio of Special Counsel Interview Adds to Renewed Debate of Biden’s Fitness as President

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    A 2023 audio recording released by Axios comes on the heels of other recent disclosures that have prompted recriminations among Democrats over their handling of the matter.A 2023 audio recording of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. speaking haltingly and having memory lapses is the latest in a series of recent disclosures that have reopened a debate over Mr. Biden’s physical and mental fitness while in office and prompted fresh recriminations among Democrats.The recording, released by the news outlet Axios on Friday night, documents a four-minute portion of Mr. Biden’s interview with Robert K. Hur, a special counsel who investigated his handling of classified information.Mr. Hur had concluded early last year that “no criminal charges” were warranted in the case. But in clearing the president, Mr. Hur portrayed Mr. Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” based off an hourslong interview with the president, inflaming concerns that Mr. Biden’s fitness for office had significantly declined.The audio clip did not reveal new exchanges between Mr. Hur and Mr. Biden. But it gives a fuller picture of why Mr. Hur described Mr. Biden as he did, capturing the president’s whispery voice and the long pauses in his speech. Trump administration officials plan to release the audio, according to two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe a decision that has yet to be announced.The audio clip comes as a forthcoming book — written by Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios — has provided new details on Mr. Biden’s mental and physical decline and chronicled how Mr. Biden’s advisers stamped out discussion of his age-related limitations. Among other issues, the book recounts Mr. Biden forgetting the names of longtime aides and allies, and outsiders who had not seen the president in some time being shocked at his appearance.Top Democrats who closed ranks to defend Mr. Biden in his moment of crisis and vouched for his fitness for office have now had to rationalize those statements. In an interview on the “Talk Easy With Sam Fragoso” podcast last month, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — who had urged Mr. Biden to remain in the race to the end — visibly struggled not to laugh when the host asked if the president had at the time been “as sharp as you.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Rejects Efforts to Free F.B.I. Informant Who Lied About Hunter Biden

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      The Trump administration had signaled it might try to undo the guilty plea and six-year prison sentence for Alexander Smirnov.A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a bid by the Justice Department to free a former F.B.I. informant who had pleaded guilty to lying about Hunter Biden and evading his taxes, saying that nothing about the facts of the case had changed and the man might still flee if released.The longtime informant, Alexander Smirnov, pleaded guilty in December in exchange for a six-year prison sentence, admitting that he had lied to the government when he claimed to have information about a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter.Before Mr. Smirnov was charged and eventually admitted his guilt, Republican lawmakers had promoted his false claims about the Bidens in their push to try to impeach President Biden. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Smirnov’s allegations were also amplified by the Trump supporter Kash Patel, who is now the director of the F.B.I.Then, in an abrupt reversal this month, the Justice Department that had sent Mr. Smirnov to prison filed court papers seeking to have him released early, saying it was taking a second look at the case. That request was filed under instructions from senior Justice Department officials in Washington, according to people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.In Los Angeles on Wednesday, a U.S. District Court judge, Otis D. Wright II, rejected that request, saying neither prosecutors nor Mr. Smirnov’s lawyers had presented any evidence that Mr. Smirnov was any less of a flight risk than when he was arrested. The judge also pushed back on what he said were inaccurate claims by the lawyers about the precise terms of his plea deal.The parties in the case, the judge wrote, “present no new facts in their papers that would alter the court’s conclusion that Smirnov is a flight risk, let alone provide ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that he is not one.”The Smirnov case was an offshoot of the federal investigation into Hunter Biden, and the plea deal was negotiated by David C. Weiss, the special counsel who led the inquiry and then stepped down in January.During the Biden administration, the Justice Department argued against the release of Mr. Smirnov, who had been arrested at the Las Vegas airport after returning to the United States from overseas.In the department’s filing earlier this month, prosecutors said that “clear and convincing evidence for defendant’s nonviolent offenses of conviction shows that defendant is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person.”The judge’s order said that the government’s new argument was unconvincing, writing that “the fact remains that Smirnov has been convicted and sentenced to 72 months in prison, providing ample incentive to flee.” More

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      After Biden Pardons His Son Hunter, Prison Inmates Hope They’re Next

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      President Biden has pardoned people convicted of some marijuana offenses, but advocates for prisoners say he has been slow to grant other requests.On Thanksgiving, Hunter Biden got the word from his father, President Biden, that he would be pardoned for tax and gun law violations, saving him from potentially spending a few years in federal prison.But Michael Montalvo, 78, a former cocaine ringleader who has spent nearly 40 years behind bars racking up course certifications, credits for good behavior and recommendations from his prison wardens, is still waiting to hear about his request for a pardon.So is Michelle West, who has spent more than 30 years in prison for her role in a drug conspiracy connected to a murder, while the gunman, who testified against her, has gone free. And Sara Gallegos, who is serving a 20-year sentence for being briefly involved in a drug ring after her husband was murdered when she was pregnant with her fourth child.“Everyone wants that chance,” said Lazara Serrano, who is waiting for her mother to win release from prison after more than 25 years, and who was stunned to hear that Hunter Biden’s criminal case was over. “For something just to be so sudden, and to happen right away, is crazy when there’s a line of people waiting.”Andrea James, who runs an organization that helps incarcerated women, said she did not begrudge Hunter Biden his pardon, but said she was hopeful that it would “move President Biden to consider other families who’ve endured what they have gone through for much longer periods of time.”Critics have complained that Mr. Biden has approved a smaller fraction of the requests for clemency that he has received than any other modern president. Of course, he still has time, and presidents have made a habit of waiting until the 11th hour to announce their clemency decisions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pardoning Hunter Complicates the Legacy That Biden Envisioned

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      President Biden is facing criticism for absolving his son after insisting he would not and, according to some critics in his own party, paving the way for Donald Trump’s return to office.There was a time, not that long ago, when President Biden imagined he would etch his place in history as the leader who ended the chaotic reign of Donald J. Trump, passed a raft of “Build Back Better” laws to transform the country and reestablished America’s place in the world.Now, in the desultory final days of his administration, Mr. Biden finds himself repudiated, even by some of his fellow Democrats, as the president who refused to step aside until it was too late, paved the way for Mr. Trump’s return to power and, in a final gesture of personal grievance over stated principle, pardoned his own son for multiple felony convictions.The disappointment and frustration expressed by his own supporters since Mr. Biden intervened to spare his son Hunter from prison and any future investigations captured the disenchantment of many Democrats with the outgoing president as the end draws near. How he will be remembered by posterity may be hard to predict at this point, but the past few weeks have not helped write the legacy he had once envisioned.The pardon came as Mr. Biden’s political stock was already at a low ebb after a stinging election defeat for his party that many allies blamed more on him than on the candidate who stepped up after he belatedly dropped out, Vice President Kamala Harris. The decision to attack the credibility of the justice system to safeguard a relative aggravated admirers who sympathized with his plight as a father yet were shocked that he would break his own promise to respect the courts’ decision.“I don’t think there is any doubt that our country would have been better off if President Biden had decided not to run for re-election,” said Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, reflecting a view that has been more commonly voiced privately by his fellow Democrats since Mr. Trump beat Ms. Harris last month. “Whether our nominee was the vice president or someone else, we would have had a much better chance to defeat Donald Trump.”Mr. Bennet, a low-key lawmaker not normally given to knee-jerk public criticism of the leader of his party, added that the clemency order fit the same pattern. “His decision to pardon his son, no matter how unconditional his love, feels like another instance of putting his personal interest ahead of his responsibility to the country,” he said. “It further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Biden Changed His Mind on Pardoning Hunter: ‘Time to End All of This’

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      The threat of a retribution-focused Trump administration and his son’s looming sentencings prompted the president to abandon a promise not to get involved in Hunter Biden’s legal problems.A dark sky had fallen over Nantucket, Mass., on Saturday evening when President Biden left church alongside his family after his final Thanksgiving as president.Inside a borrowed vacation compound earlier in the week, with its views of the Nantucket Harbor, Mr. Biden had met with his wife, Jill Biden, and his son Hunter Biden to discuss a decision that had tormented him for months. The issue: a pardon that would clear Hunter of years of legal trouble, something the president had repeatedly insisted he would not do.Support for pardoning Hunter Biden had been building for months within the family, but external forces had more recently weighed on Mr. Biden, who watched warily as President-elect Donald J. Trump picked loyalists for his administration who promised to bring political and legal retribution to Mr. Trump’s enemies.Mr. Biden had even invited Mr. Trump to the White House, listening without responding as the president-elect aired familiar grievances about the Justice Department — then surprised his host by sympathizing with the Biden family’s own troubles with the department, according to three people briefed on the conversation.But it was Hunter Biden’s looming sentencings on federal gun and tax charges, scheduled for later this month, that gave Mr. Biden the final push. A pardon was one thing he could do for a troubled son, a recovering addict who he felt had been subjected to years of public pain.When the president returned to Washington late Saturday evening, he convened a call with several senior aides to tell them about his decision.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hunter Biden Likely Wouldn’t Qualify for a Pardon Recommendation Under Justice Dept. Criteria

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      Hunter Biden likely would not have qualified for a pardon recommendation under the criteria used by the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which is tasked with identifying and vetting worthy clemency recipients. The office mostly recommends full pardons for people who have already served their sentences.Hunter Biden has not been sentenced, let alone served his sentence.Presidents have unchecked authority to grant clemency to anyone they choose, regardless of the pardon attorney’s recommendations.During his first term in office, President-elect Donald J. Trump routinely granted clemency to people who had not been recommended by the pardon attorney, including to some who had been previously rejected by the office and others who had yet to be sentenced.“Before Trump, reaching into the middle of an ongoing case to give a full pardon was almost unheard-of,” said Margaret Love, who ran the Justice Department’s clemency process from 1990 to 1997 as the United States pardon attorney.Mr. Biden has been under pressure from groups supporting prisoners’ rights to issue more clemency grants at the end of his term.In a statement issued after the announcement of Hunter Biden’s pardon, Zoë Towns, the executive director of the advocacy group FWD.us, said, “It’s time to prioritize clemency for thousands of vetted cases. The President has the opportunity to extend mercy to those serving disproportionately long sentences in federal prisons. We absolutely must turn our attention there.”The pardon attorney has received nearly 12,000 petitions for clemency during President Biden’s term.Mr. Biden has so far issued 157 clemency grants — 25 pardons, which wipe out convictions, and 132 commutations, which reduce prison sentences — according to a tally kept by the pardon attorney. It is not clear if the tally includes the pardon to his son.Mr. Biden has issued fewer clemency grants so far than the 238 — 144 pardons and 94 commutations — issued by Mr. Trump during his first administration. More

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      Biden Pardons His Son Hunter, Citing ‘Political Pressure’

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      President Biden blamed “political pressure” for the collapse of a plea deal for Hunter Biden, but it was the judge overseeing the case who questioned the agreement.Hunter Biden’s plea deal did fall apart in dramatic form at the last minute last year. But it did so after the judge overseeing the case at the time raised issues about its unusual construction, involving two separate agreements meant to work in tandem. That construction violated one of the basic tenets of federal guilty pleas: that any agreement not have any side deals.That the plea agreement fell apart once it faced basic questioning from the judge was an embarrassment to both the prosecutors and the defense lawyers who negotiated it. But that is a far cry from the president’s suggestion that the deal for Hunter Biden to avoid prison time and a felony conviction collapsed because of political pressure. More

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      Analysis: In Pardoning Hunter, Biden Sounds a Lot Like Trump

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      President Biden and President-elect Donald J. Trump now agree on one thing: The Biden Justice Department has been politicized.In pardoning his son Hunter Biden on Sunday night, the incumbent president sounded a lot like his successor in complaining about selective prosecution and political pressure, questioning the fairness of a system that Mr. Biden had until now long defended.“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Mr. Biden said in the statement announcing the pardon. “Here’s the truth,” he added. “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.”Mr. Biden’s decision to use the extraordinary power of executive clemency to wipe out his son’s convictions on gun and tax charges came despite repeated statements by him and his aides that he would not do so. Just last summer, after his son was convicted at trial, the president rejected the idea of a pardon and said that “I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process.” The statement he issued Sunday night made clear he did not accept the outcome nor respect the process.The pardon and Mr. Biden’s stated rationale for granting it will inevitably muddy the political waters as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office with plans to use the Justice Department and F.B.I. to pursue “retribution” against his political adversaries. Mr. Trump has long argued that the justice system has been “weaponized” against him and that he is the victim of selective prosecution, much like Mr. Biden has now said his son was.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hunter Biden Faced Prison Time for Tax and Gun Charges

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      President Biden not only spared his son Hunter the humiliation of two felony convictions — he also saved him from what might have been a significant stretch of time in a federal prison.Hunter Biden, 54, pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges in Los Angeles in September for falsifying records and failing to file returns dating to a period when he was hooked on crack, alcohol and easy cash.He faced up to 17 years in federal prison during a scheduled sentencing hearing in Los Angeles on Dec. 16, but would most likely have served no more than 36 months behind bars, according to sentencing experts.A jury in Wilmington, Del., in June found Mr. Biden, the president’s younger son, guilty of three felony counts for lying on a federal firearms application after an extraordinary seven-day trial. That trial made painfully public Mr. Biden’s crack addiction, reckless behavior and ruinous spending — narrated by three former romantic partners, including the widow of his brother, Beau Biden.The gun conviction came with a stiffer maximum sentence, 25 years, but he was expected to face a shorter sentence — of up to 16 months — during a hearing scheduled in Delaware on Dec. 13.The sentences would most likely have run concurrently, with Hunter Biden serving the longer stretch.On Sunday, Hunter Biden’s legal team filed paperwork in both jurisdictions informing both judges that the pardon had rendered the hearings moot. More