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News reports say that Joe Biden has signed a "full and unconditional" pardon for his son, who was facing some Federal crime charges and conviction:

Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12 for his conviction on federal gun charges. He also was set to be sentenced on Dec. 16 in a separate criminal case in which he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges in September.

The president issued a "full and unconditional pardon" for any offenses Hunter Biden has “committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024," according to the White House statement. - President Biden pardons his son Hunter Biden

Biden has clarified his position by claiming that his son was the target of a political witch-hunt to besmirch Biden's political reputation:

Joe Biden said Sunday evening that his son had been prosecuted “without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form”. “It is clear that Hunter was treated differently,” Biden said, adding that the charges in the case “came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election”.

The pardon also covers Hunter Biden’s tax evasion conviction.

But Joe Biden noted in the statement that “those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions”. Biden accused his political opponents of singling out his fifty-four year-old son. - Joe Biden issues ‘full and unconditional’ pardon to son Hunter

Assuming Joe Biden's assertions of political witch-hunt are true, can Trump (if he chooses to) reverse this pardon when he takes charge as the President of the US? Does US Presidential powers allow him to reverse a pardon issued by a previous US Presidents, to resume prosecution or sentencing?

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No. A pardon, once given, cannot be revoked (but note an exception when careless or uncertain presidents neglect to actually deliver the pardon, which could allow them to change their mind or their successor to do so, since the pardon was never actually carried out, merely written).

This is unlike an executive order establishing a question of executive branch policy, which is generally subject to the whims of the current president. Furthermore, the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy—which is not universal across countries, but is important in the USA—would prohibit retrying someone who had been pardoned.

That said, someone who has been pardoned on a federal charge could theoretically be tried at the state level for the same charge, but that is not the prerogative of the federal executive branch—but note that this depends on the state. For instance, the state of New York has ruled that a state prosecution for something that someone had been pardoned for federally would nonetheless violate double jeopardy. It is also possible for the same conduct to carry two separate charges at a single level, which can be another way around the double jeopardy prohibitions, but in no case does this involve anyone reinstating the original charges or negating the pardon.

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    Being tried on a separate charge is not possible in Biden's case since the pardon covered all offenses between 1/1/2014 and 12/1/2024.
    – doneal24
    Commented Dec 2 at 16:29
  • @doneal24 - Well, the answer is meant to cover the general case anyway, but I had not been aware of that. I had assumed that he had just been pardoned for the tax fraud and gun possession charges. That's a risky choice if it ever turned out that he did anything more serious in that decade.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented Dec 2 at 16:37
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    How does double jeopardy apply when someone is pardoned for a crime that they were never prosecuted for in the first place? I'm curious if they could be prosecuted, understanding that the blanket pardon would prevent any sentencing following a guilty verdict.
    – BlackThorn
    Commented Dec 2 at 16:38
  • @BlackThorn - That theory has not been tested, to the best of my knowledge. There have been cases like that of Richard Nixon where people were preemptively pardoned for any illegal actions that they may have taken, and these pardons seemingly have always been judged constitutional. According to the comment before yours, this may actually be a similar case, in part, because the pardon applies not just to the two charges that Hunter Biden was actually tried for (where double jeopardy certainly applies), but to any additional crimes that he might have committed during that period.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented Dec 2 at 16:43
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    @Idran - I restored the original link.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented Dec 4 at 19:08
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No pardon that had been "processed" has been reversed by a president's successor thus far. The Constitution has no provision for that.

But there was an event that came close:

In March 1869, Johnson, on his last full day in office, pardoned Jacob and Moses Dupuy, who’d been convicted of defrauding the Internal Revenue Department, and Richard C. Enright, who’d been convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government. On assuming office, Johnson’s successor, President Ulysses Grant, reversed all three by calling back the U.S. marshals out delivering the pardons. A fourth pardon that Grant meant to reverse, to one James F. Martin, was permitted to stand because Martin had it already in hand, according to the late P.S. Ruckman, Jr., a political scientist at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois. Grant’s reversal of Moses Dupuy’s pardon was challenged in court and upheld on the technical grounds that Dupuy never received it.

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  • Does it really come close? There is still pretty much time before Biden leaves office, more than enough for his son to receive the pardon, I'd think.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Dec 2 at 11:47
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    @NoDataDumpNoContribution: I wrote that that 1869 event came closest to being such a thing, not that this one regarding Biden is likely to imitate it. The timing is indeed far from being on the last day with this one.
    – 264 champagne bottles on ice
    Commented Dec 2 at 15:22

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