Melissa was born and raised in South Africa, but is now a naturalized United States citizen. Per ABC News, Hunter “proudly” attended the ceremony. In his memoir Beautiful Things, Hunter notes that Melissa is fluent in five languages, including Italian and Hebrew. He also describes her as an activist. Hunter described Melissa as an “aspiring” documentary filmmaker in his memoir, Beautiful Things. This pardon was controversial. Joe Biden said his son had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”
Critics argued the pardon raised serious ethical and legal questions, especially given the scale and timing. Weiss’s report later pushed back on Joe Biden’s framing — Weiss argued that the investigation was not politically biased. He also argued that the tax case — in which Hunter failed to pay more than $1.4 million over several years — was legitimate, calling the prosecution “the embodiment of the equal application of justice.”
