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| - There have been genuine instances of previous U.S. presidents pardoning family members, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and reportedly, Abraham Lincoln ...
... but there is no record of a pardon for Neil Bush from his father, George H.W. Bush, or for Billy Carter from his brother, Jimmy Carter. Contrary to an assertion by Ana Navarro, co-host of "The View," there is also no evidence that Woodrow Wilson pardoned an alleged brother-in-law named Hunter DeButts.
When the White House generated controversy in December 2024 by announcing that U.S. President Joe Biden had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on federal tax and gun-related charges, some people rose to his defense, arguing that there had been several precedents of presidents pardoning family members. Alleged examples given in social media posts included former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who were both named in this post on BlueSky on Dec. 2, 2024 (archived):
(BlueSky/Grant Stern)
Jimmy Carter pardoned his brother Billy Carter who took over $200,000 from Libya as its foreign agent.
George H.W. Bush pardoned his son Neil Bush for his role in the S&L scandals of the 1980s.
Nobody thinks those pardons defined either presidency.
Joe Biden's pardon of Hunter Biden won't either.
As of this writing, the post had garnered 9,500 likes and 2,800 reshares on the new social media platform, a competitor to X. The claim about the Bushes also appeared in a now-retracted column in Esquire (archived).
On X, Ana Navarro-Cárdenas, a presenter for the show "The View" posted similar claims, this time citing Presidents Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Woodrow Wilson (archived):
(X/Ana Navarro-Cárdenas)
Woodrow Wilson pardoned his brother-in-law, Hunter deButts.
Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger.
Donald Trump pardoned his daughter's father-in-law, Charlie Kushner. And just appointed him Ambassador to France.
But tell me again how Joe Biden "is setting precedent"?
Navarro-Cárdenas' post had received 3.1 million views and 55,000 likes as of this writing.
But as we will see, some of these supposed examples were not, in fact, valid precedents. While some presidents — including Clinton and Trump — had indeed pardoned family members, others, like Carter, Bush and Wilson, had not. For this reason, we rated the claims a mixture of true and false.
These Presidents Did Not Pardon Family Members
Firstly, there is no evidence that either Bush or Carter pardoned a son or brother, respectively. Looking closely at the genuine list of pardons and commutations for each of the two presidents on the website of the Department of Justice (DOJ), neither of the names Neil Bush or William Carter appear. A name search on the site for each of the two brought no results.
We also contacted the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the DOJ to confirm that they had not omitted these names from the list. Separately, we contacted the poster on BlueSky who made these claims to ask where he had found the information. We will update this report should we receive a response from one or either of the two.
Separately, pardons and commutations on the DOJ website do not include those issued by Wilson. But several X users corrected Navarro-Cárdenas' post saying that Wilson never had a brother-in-law named Hunter deButts. Navarro-Cárdenas then published another post on X admitting that her source for her claims had been the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT (archived):
(@ananavarro/X)
A search of the Wilson biography by Stockton Axson revealed seven mentions of the term "brother-in-law" and none for "deButts." Further, a genealogy site showed that while Wilson had a total of nine brothers-in-law in his lifetime (his two sisters' husbands, the two brothers of his first wife and the five brothers of his second wife), none of them bore the name "deButts" or any variation thereof. This suggests ChatGPT created that name — something it's been known to do.
These Presidents Did Pardon Family Members
However, it is correct that some former presidents pardoned family members.
For example, during his first term in office, Trump pardoned his son-in-law Jared Kushner's father, Charles Kushner. This pardon appears on the list of Trump's pardons and commutations on the DOJ website. Trump pardoned Kushner on Dec. 23, 2020, less than a month before leaving office. Kushner had been found guilty in 2005 of 16 counts of fraud and false statements, and retaliating against witness and victim, among other things. On Nov. 30, 2024, Trump, as president-elect, nominated Kushner as ambassador to France.
Another president who pardoned a family member was Clinton. He pardoned his half brother, Roger Clinton, on the day he left office — Jan. 20, 2001. Roger had been convicted in 1985 of conspiracy to distribute and distribution of cocaine.
Lastly, Abraham Lincoln reportedly pardoned his wife Mary Todd's half-sister, Emily Pariet Todd Helm. Emily had married Benjamin Hardin Helm, a confederate general, who died in 1863 at the Battle of Chickamauga during the Civil War. According to author and lay historian Ron Soodalter, the Lincolns welcomed her at the White House and Lincoln offered her a pardon in the context of the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.
In our message to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, we also asked whether to their knowledge, any other presidents had pardoned family members. We will update this report if and when we receive a response.
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