Hunter Biden was disbarred in Connecticut on Monday after facing complaints about his convictions on gun and tax charges, for which his father, former President Biden, later pardoned him.
The former president’s son consented to being disbarred and admitted to attorney misconduct as part of an agreement with the state’s lawyer discipline office but did not admit to criminal wrongdoing.
Hunter Biden was found guilty last year on three felony counts tied to his concealment of drug use to purchase and possess of a gun — the first criminal conviction of a sitting U.S. president’s child. Months later, he pleaded guilty to all nine federal tax charges he faced, staving off a second criminal trial.
His Connecticut disbarment comes after he was stripped of his law license in Washington, D.C., in May. In an earlier filing, an attorney for the former president’s son wrote he would not assert “any reason why commensurate action in this state would be unwarranted.”
Judge Patrick Carroll III determined Hunter Biden had violated the state’s attorney conduct rules, including by engaging in behavior involving “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”
The judge also cited the disbarment in the nation’s capital as reason Hunter Biden should lose his ability to practice law in Connecticut.
Hunter Biden was admitted to the Connecticut bar in April 1997, state records show. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1996.
The gun charges stemmed from Hunter Biden’s 2018 purchase of a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver. On a federal gun purchase form, the former president’s son checked “no” when asked if he used or was addicted to illegal drugs, and he then unlawfully possessed the firearm for 11 days.
A roughly weeklong trial in June 2024 spotlighted Hunter Biden’s addiction to cocaine, which he and his father have openly addressed as a struggle worsened by the 2015 brain cancer death of Beau Biden, Hunter Biden’s brother.
Hunter Biden’s plea change in the tax case came the same day jury selection was scheduled to begin in Los Angeles federal court in September 2024.
After prosecutors rejected his request to take an “Alford plea,” — where he would formally admit guilt while still maintaining his innocence and accept the judge’s eventual sentence — he agreed to enter a traditional guilty plea, conceding he withheld at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years in the throes of his addiction to cocaine and spent it instead on a lavish lifestyle.
Despite repeated vows he wouldn’t do so, former President Biden pardoned Hunter Biden last December. He claimed the charges against his son, brought by his own Justice Department, were leveled for political reasons.
“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice — and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” former President Biden said. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
President Trump, who then was preparing to return to the White House, called the move “an abuse and miscarriage of justice.”
The Hill requested comment from Hunter Biden’s lawyer.