Former President Donald Trump is arguing that Hunter Biden’s criminal conviction on a trio of charges for lying about his drug use on a federal firearm purchase form is little more than a distraction from more serious criminal activity involving President Joe Biden and his family.
A jury found President Biden’s son guilty of unlawfully concealing his history of drug abuse when purchasing a handgun in 2018.
Some Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), have argued that the younger Biden’s conviction in the federal trial undercuts assertions by Trump and other Republicans that the justice system has been unfairly weaponized and slanted against Trump, as they had when a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of allegedly falsifying business records to cover the costs for a 2016 nondisclosure agreement involving adult film star Stephanie Clifford (who goes by Stormy Daniels).
“Hunter Biden had every right and benefit that Donald Trump had. He had the right to a presumption of innocence, he had a right to counsel, which he exercised like Donald Trump did, he had a right to a jury of his peers, and he had a right to unanimous verdict, and in both cases, a jury unanimously found against the defendant on all counts in both cases,” Raskin said at a House hearing on Tuesday after Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict.
Raskin added, “Compare and contrast the difference in reaction between the Republicans and the Democrats, the Republicans are attacking our entire system of justice and the rule of law because they don’t like the way that one case came out, whereas the son of the president of the United States is prosecuted and I don’t hear a single Democrat crying foul now.”
However, Trump and other Republicans did not see Hunter Biden’s conviction as evidence of equal justice under the law and instead argued that the Biden family has far greater criminal liability that remains untouched by the justice system.
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“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,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. “Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit.”
Leavitt’s comments reference allegations that members of the Biden family, including Joe Biden, accepted bribes and other lucrative payouts from foreign business dealings as part of an influence-peddling scheme throughout Joe Biden’s political career. Those allegations are the topic of an ongoing Republican-led House impeachment inquiry.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer (R-Ky.), who has played a significant role in the House Biden impeachment inquiry, said on Tuesday that Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict is a “step toward accountability” but added that “until the Department of Justice investigates everyone involved in the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden family, it will be clear department officials continue to cover for the Big Guy, Joe Biden.”
