The decision to issue a blanket pardon for his son Hunter will forever be a part of the president’s legacy. Across an extraordinary five decades in public life, with a long rise from the Senate to the Oval Office, his Sunday night declaration puts an exclamation point – and a question mark – on Biden’s tenure in a changing era of American politics.

While controversy over presidential pardons has a long history — from George Washington absolving instigators of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1795 to Gerald Ford pardoning Richard M. Nixon after the Watergate scandal forced his resignation — few have used the constitutionally vested power to pardon family members.

The lawyer for U.S. President Joe Biden's son Hunter filed to dismiss indictments against him, after his father issued a pardon earlier that day that spans a decade. The president's full and unconditional pardon "requires dismissal of the indictment against" Hunter Biden,