Biden Laughed Off House GOP Probes of Hunter: 'Lots of Luck in Your Senior Year' (November 9, 2022)

President Joe Biden had a one-liner ready the day after the 2022 midterms. When CBS News’ Nancy Cordes asked what he would tell Republicans planning to investigate his family and his son Hunter’s business dealings, Biden laughed it off: “‘Lots of luck in your senior year,’ as my coach used to say” [1].

The video above shows that exchange from Biden’s Nov. 9, 2022, White House news conference. Quotes are from the official transcript published by The American Presidency Project. Over the next two years, the investigations he waved away produced a formal impeachment inquiry, two federal criminal cases against Hunter Biden and, finally, a presidential pardon.

”Lots of Luck in Your Senior Year”

Cordes laid out the Republican game plan in her final question. “Republicans have made it clear that if they do take control of the House, that they want to launch a raft of investigations on day one into your handling of Afghanistan, the border,” she said. “They want to investigate you. They may even want to investigate your son. What’s your message to Republicans who are considering investigating your family and, particularly, your son Hunter’s business dealings?” [1]

The room laughed at Biden’s coach line. Then he dismissed the whole idea.

“Look, I think the American public want us to move on and get things done for them,” Biden said. He noted reports that Republicans were talking impeachment and that “the former President said, ‘How many times are you going to impeach Biden?’” Then he added: “I think the American people will look at all of that for what it is. It’s just almost comedy,” he said. “But you know, look, I can’t control what they’re going to do. All I can do is continue to try to make life better for the American people” [1].

Fox News reported that Biden “joked” about the GOP’s plans to dig into Hunter Biden’s business ventures [2].

A Smaller Wave, but Enough to Win the Gavels

Biden spent much of the news conference celebrating the red wave that never came. “This was supposed to be a red wave,” he told reporters. “You guys—you were talking about us losing 30 to 50 seats and this was going to—we’re nowhere near—that’s not going to happen” [1].

The wave was small. It was still big enough. Republicans won a 222-213 majority in the 118th Congress [3], and with it the committee gavels and subpoena power behind the investigations Biden had just called “almost comedy.”

The Record: From ‘Comedy’ to the Courtroom

Comer follows the money

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the new chairman of the House Oversight Committee, went after bank records first. In May 2023, the committee said those records showed “the Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals’ and their related companies,” and that family members and associates had set up “a web of over 20 companies” [4].

McCarthy opens an impeachment inquiry

On Sept. 12, 2023, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., directed House committees to open an impeachment inquiry, saying Oversight’s work had turned up a “culture of corruption” around the Biden family. “These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption, and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy said [5].

The White House had already dismissed the push. “Speaker McCarthy shouldn’t cave to the extreme, far-right members who are threatening to shut down the government unless they get a baseless, evidence-free impeachment of President Biden,” spokesman Ian Sams said [5]. Three months later, on Dec. 13, 2023, the House voted 221-212 to formalize the inquiry under H.Res. 918 [6].

An informant’s story falls apart

One piece of the case collapsed. In February 2024, special counsel David Weiss charged Alexander Smirnov, a longtime FBI informant who had told the bureau that Burisma officials said they paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5 million. The indictment said Smirnov “provided false derogatory information to the FBI” about both men and that his claims “were fabrications” [7]. Smirnov pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and tax evasion and was sentenced in January 2025 to six years in prison [8].

The committees’ verdict

On Aug. 19, 2024, the Oversight, Judiciary and Ways and Means committees released their report, which they said found Biden committed impeachable conduct. It alleged that “Biden family members and their associates received over $27 million from foreign individuals or entities” starting in 2014 [9]. The report stopped short of recommending specific articles of impeachment and left the next step to the full House [10].

Hunter Biden’s Day in Court

The criminal cases moved faster than the impeachment push.

The gun case: On June 11, 2024, a federal jury in Wilmington, Delaware, convicted Hunter Biden of all three felony charges tied to his 2018 purchase of a revolver. Prosecutors argued he lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form [11].
The tax case: On Sept. 5, 2024, he pleaded guilty to all nine federal tax charges Weiss had brought, three felonies and six misdemeanors concerning $1.4 million in owed taxes that have since been paid [12].
The promise: Days before the gun verdict, ABC’s David Muir asked the president whether he would rule out a pardon for his son. Biden said “yes” [13]. His press secretary gave the same answer for months, as our record of Karine Jean-Pierre’s statements shows.

”Raw Politics”

On Dec. 1, 2024, Biden reversed himself. “Today I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” he said in a statement. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decisionmaking, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively and unfairly prosecuted” [14].

“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,” Biden wrote. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision” [14].

The grant was “A Full and Unconditional Pardon” covering offenses Hunter Biden “committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024” [14].

By the Numbers

222-213: the House majority Republicans won in the 2022 midterms [3].
$10 million-plus: money from foreign sources that Oversight’s May 2023 bank-records memo said reached the Biden family, its business associates and their companies [4].
221-212: the Dec. 13, 2023, House vote formalizing the impeachment inquiry [6].
$27 million-plus: the total the committees’ August 2024 report alleged Biden family members and associates received from foreign individuals or entities [9].
3 and 9: the felony gun counts Hunter Biden was convicted on and the tax counts he pleaded guilty to in 2024 [11][12].
Nearly 11 years: the span covered by the pardon, Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024 [14].
5: additional family members Biden pardoned on his last day in office [15].

What Happened Next

In the final minutes of his presidency on Jan. 20, 2025, Biden issued preemptive pardons to five more relatives: his brothers James B. Biden and Francis W. Biden, James’ wife Sara Jones Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens and her husband John T. Owens [15].

“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden wrote. He said the pardons “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense” [15].

Two years after Biden told Republicans “lots of luck,” his son had been convicted in two federal cases and pardoned, and five more members of his family held pardons of their own.