President-elect Trump called President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, “an abuse and miscarriage of justice” Sunday.
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” the president-elect said in a post on Truth Social, seemingly referring to rioters who have been accused of storming the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack.
Biden announced earlier Sunday that he signed his son’s pardon and argued in a statement that the charges that his son had faced came about due to political reasons.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Biden said in a statement.
“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” he added. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement obtained by The Hill’s sister network NewsNation that “failed witch hunts against President Trump have proven that the Democrat-controlled [Department of Justice] and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system.”
“That system of justice must be fixed and due process must be restored for all Americans, which is exactly what President Trump will do as he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people,” Cheung added.
The president’s fellow Republicans in Congress reacted with similar disdain to Biden’s move to pardon his son.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement posted to the social platform X on Sunday that the president “has lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities.”
“Not only has he falsely claimed that he never met with his son’s foreign business associates and that his son did nothing wrong, but he also lied when he said he would not pardon Hunter Biden,” Comer continued.
Despite Trump commonly saying amid Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial that he was being treated better than most, he did say late last month that he wouldn’t discount a pardon for the president’s son if he won this year’s election.
The Hill has reached out to the White House and Department of Justice for further comment.
