Colorado Democrat senator Michael Bennett agreed, telling CNN: “It just gives the American people a sense that there’s one system for the rich and powerful and another system for everybody else.”

Loading

Virginia senator Tim Kaine had a similar sentiment, saying in a statement: “President Biden made a promise to not take this step, and I do not believe in breaking promises. We all need to follow the rule of law, even – especially – when it’s hard for us personally.”

The internal dissent that Biden faces comes weeks before he leaves office after a political career spanning half a century.

But the sweeping nature of the pardon – which covers not only the tax and gun convictions that Hunter faced but also any potential criminal activities that he “may have committed or taken part in” starting from January 2014 through to Sunday – has exposed the president to claims that he is abusing a justice system he long denied was being “weaponised”.

The beginning date is significant as it is a few months before Hunter joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings – a position in which Republicans have accused him of violating foreign lobbying laws. They have also used Hunter’s business dealings as a political cudgel against his father, who was then vice president under Barack Obama.

“Enough is enough,” Biden said as he announced the pardon before leaving to Angola on his final presidential overseas trip.

Trump immediately responded by hinting at potential clemency for rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

His list of past pardons also includes his former national security adviser Michael Flynn (who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the Russian interference investigation of Trump); Paul Manafort (convicted of tax and bank fraud as part of the Russia investigation), former White House strategist Steve Bannon (charged with defrauding donors in a campaign to fund Trump’s border wall), and real estate developer Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner and now his nominee for ambassador to France (he served two years in prison for tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations).

Loading

Trump’s lawyers this week formally asked a judge to throw out his hush money criminal conviction, arguing continuing the case would present unconstitutional “disruptions to the institution of the presidency.”

They also cited Biden’s pardon of his son in the filing.

“President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and ‘treated differently’,” Trump’s legal team wrote. The Manhattan district attorney, they claimed, had engaged in the type of political theatre “that President Biden condemned”.

The backlash over Biden’s pardon comes as Trump rounds out his new cabinet with loyalists who will help him carry out his second-term agenda.

Among them is Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth who has spent the past two days meeting senators on Capitol Hill amid fresh claims that he was forced out of leadership roles in two military veterans’ organisations following allegations of financial mismanagement, aggressive drunkenness and sexist behaviour.

The 44-year-old military veteran was an unconventional choice for the top Pentagon job, as he has never led a large government agency. Now, concerns about his qualifications have been overshadowed by allegations related to his personal conduct.

The latest reports, made by a whistleblower in The New Yorker, come after California police released a complaint by a woman who claims Hegseth raped her during a Republican fundraiser in 2017.

He insists, however, that the incident was consensual, and in relation to the latest claims, told reporters through an adviser that the claims were “outlandish”. His lawyer declined to comment.

However, the Trump team continues to stand by its picks, with senior adviser Jason Miller telling Fox News on Tuesday that they were feeling “very good about the nominees”.

Others include Russian sympathiser and former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy for secretary of health, and former Florida attorney-general Pam Bondi for federal attorney-general.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.