On Dec. 2, 2024, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who faced a potential prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions, after previously pledging he wouldn’t.
Following the controversial pardon, some people on social media argued that Biden’s pardon would not define his legacy because it did not define the legacy of other presidents they claimed pardoned their relatives. According to one post, President Jimmy Carter pardoned his brother Billy Carter and former President George H.W. Bush pardoned his son Neil Bush.
Other people shared related claims about presidents pardoning relatives. For example, this account with nearly 100,000 followers claimed Bush pardoned his son Neil and one of the replies to that post also named Billy Carter.
A VERIFY reader asked us if Bush and Carter really did pardon family members during their presidencies.
THE QUESTION
Did former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter pardon family members?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter did not pardon family members.
WHAT WE FOUND
Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush did not pardon their relatives. Carter’s brother was the subject of a Senate investigation and Bush’s son was sued in a civil case, but neither faced criminal charges and therefore could not be pardoned.
The U.S. Department of Justice maintains a list of all presidential pardons since Richard Nixon. Carter did not pardon Billy Carter, his brother, and Bush did not pardon Neil Bush, his son.
Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy was investigated for his contact with Libyan government officials, who gave Billy a $220,000 loan, according to a Senate Commission on the Judiciary report on the matter. The report did not recommend criminal charges be filed against Billy Carter.
Neil Bush was one of several former officials of the then-defunct Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan who was sued by the federal government over the bank’s failure, a 1991 UPI news article shows. Neil Bush paid $50,000 of the $49.5 million the Silverado Banking officials paid in a settlement, the Washington Post reported in 1992.
Billy Carter was subject to a civil investigation and the lawsuit against Neil Bush was a civil case. The U.S. Constitution describes pardons as a form of relief from federal criminal punishment. They cannot be granted for civil cases or state criminal cases.
While an Esquire article published Dec. 3 did spread the claim that Bush pardoned his son Neil, that article has since been wholly removed from Esquire’s website and replaced with an editor’s note stating the article’s claim was incorrect.
Similar claims that former presidents pardoned family members
Another post, this one from The View co-host Ana Navarro-Cárdenas and seen over 3 million times, claimed that Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger; Donald Trump pardoned his daughter’s father-in-law, Charlie Kushner; and Woodrow Wilson pardoned his brother-in-law, Hunter deButts.
The first two pardons regarding Clinton and Trump are factually accurate, but there’s no evidence that Wilson had a brother-in-law named Hunter deButts.
After people pointed out that Wilson did not have a brother-in-law named Hunter deButts, Navarro-Cárdenas later posted a screenshot showing that she got the information on the three pardons from AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Reporter Elizabeth Lopatto from The Verge asked ChatGPT about Hunter deButts, and it identified him as the husband of Wilson’s sister, Annie. Her husband was actually George Howe.
ChatGPT gave VERIFY a different answer when we asked if Wilson had a brother-in-law named Hunter deButts. ChatGPT told us that Hunter deButts became Wilson’s son-in-law when he married one of Wilson’s daughters, Margaret. ChatGPT at first incorrectly said Margaret was born through Wilson’s second marriage, then later corrected itself by saying she was born through his first marriage.
Margaret never married, according to Find a Grave.
Lopatto found that ChatGPT also claimed that Bush pardoned his son Neil and Carter pardoned his brother Billy. When VERIFY directly asked ChatGPT about both, ChatGPT incorrectly claimed that Bush pardoned Neil but correctly answered that Carter did not pardon Billy.
AI chat bots like ChatGPT often make mistakes and give incorrect answers. These incorrect or misleading results are called “hallucinations.” There’s even a warning under ChatGPT’s textbox that says, “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info.”
A University of Maryland research guide says that AI will often produce answers that mix truth with fiction. It can be wrong by simply giving the wrong answer, mistakenly omitting information and by making up completely fake people, events and articles.
The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter, text alerts and our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Learn More »
