Several prominent Republicans said they were unimpressed by the guilty verdict against the president Joe BidenThe man’s son complained on Tuesday that the government should have arrested him for worse crimes.
A Delaware jury found Hunter Biden, 54, guilty of three charges related to the 2018 gun purchase while he was addicted to crack cocaine. Hunter Biden’s crimes carry a maximum prison sentence of 25 years.
“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” said Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign. in response to the verdict.
Republicans spoke out against the verdict as the high-profile case against Hunter Biden undermines their continued claims that the US Justice Department is “weaponized” against Trump and his supporters. After all, if President Biden was plotting to persecute Republicans, why would he impale his own son?
Republicans still found a way to make that argument by suggesting the gun charges were actually a cover-up.
Stephen Miller, a former adviser in the Trump White House, promoted the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden pulled the strings at the Justice Department and had orchestrated indictments that did not implicate the president himself in any wrongdoing.
“The gun allegations are a gigantic deception. An easy option for DOJ to sell to a pliant media that is all too willing to be duped,” Miller wrote on the social media platform X. “Don’t be gaslit. This is all about protecting Joe Biden and only Joe Biden.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) echoed Miller, saying that “until the Justice Department investigates anyone involved in the Bidens’ corrupt influence schemes that generated more than $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden family, it will be clear, department officials will continue to provide cover for the Big Guy, Joe Biden.
Comer has led an impeachment inquiry against Biden that has sifted through thousands of pages of bank statements, phone records and wire transfers, and taken hours of depositions with people involved in Hunter Biden’s foreign business ventures. They also interviewed several officials involved in the administration’s case against Hunter Biden, including the gun charges and tax bills that will go to trial in the fall.
When the impeachment inquiry collapsed earlier this year, Comer said his committee would still make criminal referrals. But when Republicans finally referred Hunter Biden for prosecution last week, the only violation they alleged was that he did so lied to Congress in his testimony in February about his past business deals as part of the impeachment inquiry.
The Justice Department has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018, with President Biden leaving U.S. Attorney David Weiss in post in Delaware to complete the case. Republicans complained that the department protected the younger Biden before he was indicted, and when he reached a settlement with Weiss’ team, Republicans called it a sweetheart deal.
“The prosecution only moved forward with these gun charges after a judge dismissed the sweetheart deal,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s allies in the Senate. said Tuesday on social media.
The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Tuesday complaints emphasized from Internal Revenue Service agents alleging that the Justice Department obstructed their investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes. (Other officials involved in the Biden case have disputed their claims.) Weiss and Hunter Biden’s legal team reached the plea deal shortly before the IRS agents’ complaints became public; the plea deal failed in court due to disagreement over whether Hunter Biden would be protected from future charges.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters that Hunter Biden’s verdict does not undermine Republicans’ “weaponization” claims because the evidence against Biden’s son was “overwhelming,” while the material prosecutors against Donald Trump is not.
Graham and some other Republicans have said they are uncomfortable with the gun charges against Biden because they violate his Second Amendment rights. Biden’s legal team has made a similar defense, and a federal appeals court has even said that restrictions on gun ownership for drug users are unconstitutional, but the judge in Hunter Biden’s case rejected that argument.
“Most people in Delaware would have faced federal legal consequences for tax evasion and would not have been prosecuted on the gun charges,” Graham said.
“Hunter may deserve to be in jail for something, but buying a gun doesn’t.” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). “There are millions of marijuana users who own guns in this country, and none of them should be in jail for purchasing or possessing a firearm in violation of current laws.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), meanwhile, so-called condemnation of Biden “kinda stupid tbh” but didn’t elaborate.
