President Biden says that his fear of political retribution from President Trump’s Justice Department led him to pardon his only surviving son, Hunter Biden, for two criminal indictments which resulted in one guilty verdict and one guilty plea. Only Hunter is not the only Biden family member dogged by allegations of self-dealing. 

The first person on Mr. Biden’s pardon list may very well be his own brother, James Biden, who — like his nephew — was ensnared in the Republican-led impeachment inquiry into the president and later had a criminal referral levied against him by the House Oversight Committee. 

When that referral was issued, the chairman of the committee, Congressman James Comer, said he sent it to prosecutors so that Trump’s legal officers could bring about “swift justice.” That referral is still sitting at the Justice Department, and will still be there come January. 

On Monday, Mr. Comer reiterated his claim that the president and his brother “definitely and knowingly committed crimes” over their decades-long careers in the nation’s capital. 

The president’s brother, 75, has spent his entire career leveraging his brother’s name for consulting engagements and other sources of income. Court documents show he dropped the president’s name to get a lucrative deal with the Americore hospital chain, which collapsed. The chief executive of that same healthcare firm said he likely would not have hired him had he not been the president’s brother.  

Shortly after his brother left the vice presidency, Mr. Biden wrote to Qatari officials about the possibility of working together on lucrative lobbying and consulting deals, saying in a letter that he would “welcome” the investment “on behalf of the Biden family.” Mr. Biden was also involved with Hunter in some of Hunter’s efforts to secure money from various foreign entities who wanted access, or the perception of access, to the president.

House Republicans hinged their impeachment inquiry on their disclosure that the elder Mr. Biden had given a loan of $40,000 to his brother after he had left the vice presidency, and that his brother later repaid him with money he had made from a lucrative deal with a firm in Communist China. 

Mr. Biden has denied any wrongdoing with respect to his brother’s public career. 

The president’s sister-in-law, Sarah Biden, James’ wife, became a prominent figure in the impeachment inquiry given that she personally wrote the “loan repayment” check for $40,000 to the president. While the impeachment inquiry never issued any criminal referral for Mrs. Biden and she was not interviewed by any of the committees, she could still be caught up in a sprawling probe into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. 

Beau Biden’s widow, Hallie Biden — who dated her brother-in-law shortly after her husband passed away — may be in investigators’ sights as well. The House Oversight Committee disclosed multiple payments to Ms. Biden from her brother-in-law’s consulting business for unknown reasons. Given she had no experience doing any kind of consulting or lobbying work with her family, it is still unclear why she was paid at least $35,000 by a family business associate who was doing overseas work. 

Ms. Biden is one of several Biden family members who congressional investigators identified as receiving portions of money paid to Hunter and his uncle by clients in China. According to one bank memo disclosed by the Oversight Committee, a $3 million payment was sent from the Chinese energy firm CEFC to Hunter’s company, which was later dispersed to his uncle, his brother’s widow, and another business associate. 

In an impeachment inquiry report from 2023, House Republicans also disclosed that another unknown member of the Biden family was receiving payments from the president’s son and his associates, though that family member’s name was not uncovered by the committees. 

Finally, Mr. Biden may need to look in the mirror to find a person in need of a pardon. Trump has repeatedly accused the sitting president of blatant corruption during the course of his public life via him and his brother. 

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the potential for additional pardons for Biden family members. 

Other potential pardon recipients include those political opponents that Trump himself has named. Trump has listed Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Speaker Pelosi and her husband Paul, and Senator-elect Schiff as some of those officials who represent “the enemy within.”

Trump and other Republican officials like attorney general nominee Pam Bondi have said that the very prosecutors who have come after Trump during the last four years should face their own investigations. Those prosecutors include New York attorney general Letitia James, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis. 

Special Counsel Jack Smith earned a special ire from the president-elect during the course of his two prosecutions of Trump, and he reportedly plans to leave the Justice Department before the new administration begins in January.