The decision to issue a blanket pardon for his son Hunter will forever be a part of the president’s legacy. Across an extraordinary five decades in public life, with a long rise from the Senate to the Oval Office, his Sunday night declaration puts an exclamation point – and a question mark – on Biden’s tenure in a changing era of American politics.

Hunter Biden’s legal travails have cast a shadow over his father’s presidency. In June, he was convicted of lying on a gun-purchase form in 2018. He checked a box denying the

The “full and unconditional” pardon is aimed at protecting the president’s son from future prosecution by the Trump Justice Department.