President Joe Biden on Sunday pardoned his son Hunter, who was convicted of illegally purchasing a handgun in Delaware and pleaded guilty to tax charges in Los Angeles.

In explaining his controversial action — which came weeks before the president's son was to be sentenced by federal judges on both coasts — Biden claimed his son was the victim of unfair political attacks. Biden has said in the past he would not pardon Hunter.

"The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election," Biden said in a statement released Sunday. "No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.

"There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they've tried to break me — and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough," he said.

In June, Hunter Biden was convicted of federal gun crimes, including lying about being drug-free when he purchased and briefly owned a gun while he was addicted to crack cocaine.

The guilty verdict capped a weeklong trial in which prosecutors elicited testimony from Biden's ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend and his sister-in-law turned lover. All spoke in graphic detail about his addiction to drugs and alcohol, with First Lady Jill Biden often sitting in the front row.

Biden was on trial for three felony charges, and the jury convicted him of all three. In addition to lying on a federal background check form and giving a false statement to a federal firearms dealer, he was convicted of possessing a gun while being an illicit drug user.

At the time, President Biden said he would "accept the outcome of the case" and continue to "respect the judicial process" while his son considered an appeal of the verdict.

In September, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all nine federal tax charges he faced, just as jury selection was about to begin in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

The indictment included racy details of Biden's life between 2016 and 2019 — the period during which now he admits he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes — including the hundreds of thousands of dollars he spent on escorts, a pornographic website, hotels, luxury car rentals and other lavish personal expenses.

Prosecutors alleged, among other things, that Biden improperly classified personal expenses as business expenses and paid his federal income taxes late.

Hunter Biden has long been a favorite target of conservatives, the right-wing media and political opponents of his father.

The younger Biden faced questions about his foreign business dealings, particularly his seat on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company that he joined in 2014 while his father was vice president. Hunter Biden was paid millions by the company. He denies any wrongdoing.

Hunter Biden now lives in Malibu, where he took up a daily ritual of painting.

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