White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that President Joe Biden will not pardon his son Hunter amid his legal woes.
"No," Jean-Pierre said definitively after a reporter asked if there was a possibility Biden would issue a pardon.
Jean-Pierre's response comes after a plea deal between Hunter Biden and the Department of Justice fell through Wednesday. Federal judge Maryellen Noreika rejected the deal and told both prosecutors and Biden's legal team to craft a new one.
The original deal would have allowed Biden to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes and receive immunity on a broad range of criminal charges, all while avoiding jail time.
Jean-Pierre defended the DOJ investigation into Hunter Biden after the plea deal collapsed, saying the case was "handled independently."
"The case was handled independently, as all of you know, by the Justice Department, under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president, President Trump," Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday.
Jean-Pierre declined to give further comment Wednesday, saying that "Hunter Biden is a private citizen and this is a personal matter for him."
Joe Biden has frequently distanced himself from Hunter Biden's lucrative foreign business.
"I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period," Biden said in August 2019.
Investigations by House Republicans, however, have uncovered growing evidence that the president may have played an active role in his son’s business dealings. Devon Archer, the first son’s former friend, is expected to testify before Congress next week that then-vice president Joe Biden was on speakerphone in meetings with Hunter Biden's foreign business partners.