Hunter Biden publicly branded Merrick Garland's appointment as attorney general the "single greatest mistake" of his father's presidency, faulting Garland for failing to prosecute Donald Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot while pursuing charges against Hunter himself.
The younger Biden made the remarks Sunday on the "I've Had It" podcast, hosted by Jennifer Welch, in what amounted to a pointed rebuke of the man who ran the Justice Department for four years under President Joe Biden. It was a striking public accusation from a member of the Biden family, one who received a sweeping presidential pardon from his own father in the final weeks of the administration.
Hunter Biden did not hold back. He told Welch that Garland's leadership explained the political landscape the country now faces, though he stopped short of defining exactly what "the situation that we're in right now" means. He also acknowledged that ultimate responsibility rests with his father for making the appointment in the first place.
The exchange began when Welch told Hunter Biden that Garland's DOJ infuriated her, both for declining to prosecute Trump and for going after Hunter instead. Fox News Digital reported Hunter Biden's response:
"My take is this, and removing myself from it as much as I can, my personal feelings, is the single greatest mistake of my father's administration was the leadership of Merrick Garland."
He went further, describing what he saw as Garland's failure to act on the Capitol breach. Hunter Biden framed Jan. 6 as a coordinated effort that demanded prosecution at the highest level:
"[I]f Merrick Garland had started a completely 100% [legitimate investigation] rather than thinking like let's not fan the flames... did you not watch what I watched? Did you not see the people storming the Capitol of the United States of America, beating cops and running congressmen and senators literally out of the building?"
He claimed the events were not spontaneous but part of "a concerted and planned effort on their part beginning all the way back from the day before the election when they knew they were going." That characterization, a "planned conspiracy," as the article described it, went beyond what many legal proceedings have established, but Hunter Biden offered it as settled fact.
At the same time, Garland's DOJ did investigate Hunter Biden. The federal probe began in 2018, during President Trump's first term, and focused on tax charges and the unlawful purchase of a firearm. Hunter Biden was ultimately convicted on three gun felony charges in Delaware and pleaded guilty to nine tax charges in California, facing up to 17 years in prison and $1.3 million in fines. His legal team released a 52-page document arguing the prosecutions were politically motivated and requesting clemency before sentencing.
So the man now calling Garland his father's worst decision is also the man whose own criminal exposure prompted a presidential pardon covering any offense he "has committed or may have committed" from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024. That is not a narrow grant of clemency. It is a blanket shield spanning a full decade.
Podcast host Welch offered her own theory of how Garland ended up running the Justice Department. She described it as a loyalty play rooted in Barack Obama's failed effort to place Garland on the Supreme Court years earlier. Welch told Hunter Biden:
"Obama picks this milquetoast candidate. Your dad is a decent man, felt bad about what happened to Merrick Garland. And he played integrity politics. Like, well, 'I'm going to make him whole and make him attorney general.' And then Merrick Garland gets there, and he's like, 'Well, we can't upset these crusty White Republicans.'"
Hunter Biden's reply was two words: "Massive mistake."
That framing, that Garland got the job as a consolation prize and then governed timidly, is a complaint that has circulated on the political left for years. But hearing it from the former president's son, delivered flatly and without qualification, carries a different weight. It is a member of the Biden family publicly confirming that the appointment was driven by sentiment rather than strategic judgment.
Hunter Biden did credit his father with maintaining a strict separation between the White House and the Justice Department, invoking the post-Watergate norm that presidents do not interfere with DOJ decisions. "I guarantee you there was a division between church and state there," he said. But he also acknowledged the obvious tension: "The buck has to stop with my dad. He was the president and he chose him."
Hunter Biden's growing public profile has become a recurring irritant for Democrats trying to move past the Biden era. He has cheered socialist primary wins and urged Democrats to abandon centrist strategy, positioning himself as a political voice in his own right, a role few in the party asked him to play.
The investigation that Hunter Biden now dismisses as misdirected drew serious scrutiny from inside the government. IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who led the tax investigation, alleged that his team was blocked from pursuing leads that could have implicated President Joe Biden. Shapley also claimed that Attorney General Garland denied special counsel designation to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, an allegation Garland denied.
Those allegations painted a picture not of an overzealous DOJ but of one that may have pulled its punches on the Biden family while slow-walking accountability. That version of events sits uncomfortably alongside Hunter Biden's claim that Garland was too aggressive toward him and too passive toward Trump. Both complaints cannot be true at the same time, unless the real grievance is simply that the DOJ acted in ways that were politically inconvenient for the Bidens.
Garland himself has not responded publicly to Hunter Biden's characterization. No statement from the former attorney general appeared in any of the available reporting.
The Biden family's continued public commentary has drawn frustration from within the Democratic Party. Some Democrats have lashed out at the family for dragging the party back into debates it would rather leave behind, particularly around the 2024 campaign and Joe Biden's fitness for office. Hunter Biden's podcast tour adds another chapter to that tension.
What stands out about Hunter Biden's complaint is not the substance, the left's dissatisfaction with Garland is well-documented, but the source. This is a man who faced federal felony charges, received a presidential pardon of extraordinary breadth from his own father, and now sits on a podcast telling the country that the real problem was the attorney general who allowed the investigation to proceed at all.
He has also been making headlines for other reasons. Hunter Biden nearly came to blows during a filmed interview in a Philadelphia motel, adding to a string of confrontational public appearances that have kept him in the news cycle.
The pardon itself covered a decade of potential offenses, from January 2014 through December 2024. Joe Biden issued it despite having publicly stated he would not pardon his son. The reversal came in the final weeks of his presidency, shielding Hunter from any further prosecution tied to the tax and gun cases or anything else within that ten-year window.
Hunter Biden acknowledged on the podcast that his father bears responsibility for choosing Garland. But the rest of his argument amounted to a claim that the Justice Department should have focused its energy on prosecuting the current president rather than investigating the former president's son. That is a policy argument dressed up as a moral one, and it lands differently when the person making it walked free because his father signed a pardon.
Accountability is a principle, not a menu. You do not get to demand it for your political opponents and call it a mistake when it reaches your own front door.
