Former President Trump and his allies on Tuesday bemoaned a plea deal struck between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors over tax and firearm crimes, comparing it unfavorably to the charges Trump is facing over his retention of classified documents after leaving office.
Biden, the president’s son, reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and separately admit to the facts of a gun charge through a pretrial diversion program. The agreement will likely keep Biden out of jail, and it resolves a roughly five-year investigation that began during the Trump administration.
“Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
A spokesperson for MAGA Inc., a Trump-aligned super PAC, ripped the agreement as a “sweetheart deal” intended to “make their bogus case to ‘get Trump’ appear fair.”
“The American people need President Trump back in office to appoint a truly independent special prosecutor that will finally bring justice,” spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Leavitt’s statement linked to a post from earlier this month in which Trump predicted prosecutors will “hit Hunter with something small to make their strike on me look ‘fair.'”
Trump himself was arraigned last week on 37 federal counts following a Department of Justice indictment alleging he violated both the Espionage Act and obstructed justice in taking classified records from his White House and refusing to return them. He is also facing charges for concealing documents and misleading investigators.
The former president and his team have repeatedly attacked Hunter Biden and suggested he is corrupt dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign.
House Republicans have launched an investigation into the foreign business dealings of Biden and other family members of President Biden and their associates, raising alarm about foreign funds that flowed to the first family.
Republicans have not produced evidence, though, that directly links Joe Biden to any of his son’s foreign business dealings. The president has previously denied knowledge of those affairs.