Bill Clinton recalls pardoning half-brother, says it's not similar to Biden's controversial one of Hunter

Former President Bill Clinton recalled the pardon of his brother, Roger Clinton, during an interview on Wednesday, while talking about President Biden's pardon of his son, Hunter Biden. 

"I think that the president did have reason to believe that the nature of the offenses involved were likely to produce far stronger adverse consequences for his son than they would for any normal person under the same circumstances," Clinton said during an interview at the New York Times DealBook Summit, adding that people should look at all the facts. 

Clinton then said he read that it was comparable to when he pardoned his half brother, Roger Clinton, when he was president. Roger Clinton went to prison in the 1980s for cocaine charges, according to the Washington Post, and had served his sentence before Clinton pardoned him. Roger was arrested for drunk driving nearly a month after receiving a pardon.

According to the New York Times, "Mr. Clinton said that he did not believe the two situations were analogous, even as he stressed that presidential pardons are often complicated and politically fraught."

The ex-president contrasted, "My brother did 14 months in federal prison for something he did when he was 20, and I supported it, and he testified, told the truth about what he'd done when he had a drug problem and helped to bring down a larger enterprise. And they sentenced him, and then he served 14 months, and then he got out. The real question was, would he ever be able to vote again? Would he ever be able to have normal citizenship responsibilities?" 

Former President Bill Clinton speaks onstage during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2024 at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 4, 2024, in New York City.  (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times)

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"I've been sort of upset that there's been no discussion about the larger problem, which is does the pardon system we have work?" he added, before detailing the process in which someone applies for a pardon. 

Clinton echoed what Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said about Hunter's pardon. Jeffries said he understood why the president did it, but that there were a lot of other people deserving of pardons who had gotten excessive sentences.

New York Times reporter and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him to respond to a piece in Politico that read, "It is a rich gift to those who want to blow up the justice system as we know it, and who claim the government is a self-dealing club for hypocritical elites. It is a promise-breaking act that subjects Biden’s allies to yet another humiliation in a year packed with Biden-inflicted injuries."

Former President Bill Clinton speaks in support of the Harris Walz presidential campaign during the Fort Valley GOTV Community Fish Fry at the Agricultural Technology Conference Center on October 13, 2024, in Fort Valley, Georgia.  (Julia Beverly/Getty Images)

"We had a lot better record than the Republicans did, didn't we? And what good did it do us? I mean, nobody believes anybody anymore," Clinton said. "I personally believe that the president is almost certainly right that his son received completely different treatment then he would have if he hadn't been the president's son in this kind of case."

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Clinton said that politics can't be taken out of the pardon decisions if presidents are involved, adding, "I wish he hadn't said he wasn't going to do it."

"I think it does weaken his case," he added.

Biden's decision to pardon Hunter received backlash from both sides of the aisle. He accused his own Justice Department of treating Hunter unfairly.

FILE - President Joe Biden, wearing a Team USA jacket and walking with his son Hunter Biden, heads toward Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, July 26, 2024.  (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

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"Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter," Biden wrote in a statement. "From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted."