US President Joe Biden has pardoned his son Hunter Biden who was earlier convicted of gun-related charges in Delaware and pleaded guilty to tax evasion in California.

In an unprecedented move which reverses the longstanding pledge by President Biden to not use his presidential powers to protect his only surviving son, the pardon comes weeks before he exits the White House in January 2025.

In an official statement issued by the White House, President Biden said that he has decided to issue the executive grant of clemency for his son Hunter “for those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024,” reported NBC News.

Biden defended his move of pardoning son Hunter and stated that the charges against him were politically motivated and were designed in a manner that it hurts him politically. He further added saying, “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. 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,” President Biden said in a statement.

In June, Hunter Biden was convicted by a federal jury after he lied in a gun purchase form in 2018 when he declared that he wasn’t using illegal drugs and then illegally owned that weapon as a drug user for around 11 days, reported The Washington Post. Other than that, Hunter also pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges in September.