After President Biden granted him a full unconditional pardon, Hunter Biden now encounters claims of owing more than $300,000 in unpaid rent to previous landlords.
Shaun Maguire, who serves as a partner at the venture capital firm Sequoia, responded to the pardon announcement on social media by asserting that the president’s son has built up significant unpaid rent obligations reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“So what happens to the $300k+ in back pay rent that Hunter Biden owes my family from 2019-2020? Is that pardoned now? Thanks Joe,” Maguire posted on X.
President Biden delivered a “full and unconditional pardon” to his son Hunter Biden on Sunday, encompassing any federal crimes committed or possibly committed from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024. Hunter Biden has dealt with federal charges involving tax violations and accusations of supplying inaccurate details regarding his substance abuse problems on a firearm background check form. This decision represents a departure from President Biden’s prior declarations that he would refrain from pardoning his son.
“Hunter was our tenant in Venice, CA. Didn’t pay rent for over a year. Tried to pay w/ art made from his own feces. Absolute s– bag,” Maguire posted, noting in a subsequent message that the rent amounted to $25,000 per month for the house situated on the canals in the city, as Fox Business reported.
He further stated that Hunter “changed the locks and used secret service to enforce. We had no access to the property.”
When one social media user inquired whether Maguire and his family had attempted to evict Hunter Biden due to the unpaid rent, Maguire replied that the Bidens represent “kind of a scary family to go after.”
Maguire’s assertions about unpaid rent involve a civil issue and fall outside the scope of a presidential pardon, which pertains solely to federal crimes. Maguire’s statement comes after an earlier claim that Hunter Biden neglected to pay a landlord tens of thousands of dollars in rent.
DailyMail.com reported last year, drawing from sources knowledgeable about the matter, that Hunter Biden owed Sweetgreen CEO and co-founder Jonathan Neman $80,000 in back rent—corresponding to roughly three months’ rent for a $25,000-a-month house in Venice.
A federal judge has formally concluded Hunter Biden’s tax case following Joe Biden’s pardon of his son, though not without delivering sharp criticism of the president’s announcement regarding the clemency as inaccurate.
In a five-page order, U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi from the Central District of California, appointed by Trump, declared that “representations contained” in the president’s news release on the pardon “stand in tension with the case record.”
The judge expressed disagreement with the president’s statement because it caused harm to numerous public officials. He indicated that the pardon extended to hours of unacceptable behavior in the future without authorization.
“The President asserts that Mr. Biden ‘was treated differently’ from others ‘who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions,’ implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction,” Scarsi wrote. “But he is not.”
He further noted that Joe Biden’s assertion of his son being “singled out” and “treated differently” implied wrongdoing by many individuals within the legal system, including Scarsi and personnel from the president’s own DOJ.
“Two federal judges expressly rejected Mr. Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President,” Scarsi wrote. “And the President’s own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges. In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people.”
Scarsi concluded by stating that determining the legality of Joe Biden’s pardon exceeded his role, yet the president’s execution of it on December 1 while including actions “through” that same day suggested a constitutional violation by permitting Hunter Biden to evade accountability for future crimes.
