Durbin on Hunter Biden pardon: 'If I have to have a bias in this area, it's a loving parent who wants to protect his child'

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday noted the past trauma in President Biden’s family when talking about his recent pardon of his son Hunter Biden.

“This is a man who loves his children and has gone through quite an ordeal, having lost a former wife and child in [an] automobile accident, and seeing the two boys, Beau and Hunter, go through serious hospital stays and try to rebuild their lives," Durbin told anchor Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union."

“If I have to have a bias in this area, it's a loving parent who wants to protect his child, I understand that situation, and I understand Michael Bennet's observation,” he added, referencing the objection of Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) to Biden’s pardon.

The president argued in a statement last Sunday that charges brought against his son, which have included three felony charges on his purchase and possession of a gun in 2018, came about due to political reasons.

“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,” Biden said.

Bennet said Monday in a post on the social platform X that the president's "decision put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans' faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all." The Colorado Democrat was joined in his distaste for the pardon by other Senate Democrats, including Sens. Peter Welch (Vt.), Gary Peters (Mich.), and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.).

President Biden’s decision to pardon his son marked a reversal from his previous stance, as the president and his allies had said for more than a year he was not going to offer a pardon for more than a year.

“He promised he wouldn't do it, and now he's doing it, but it's a labor of love,” Durbin said Sunday.