The 2024 Republican presidential field came out swinging against the DOJ after it was announced Hunter Biden had reached a plea deal and will likely avoid jail time after being charged with illegally possessing a firearm and failing to pay taxes for two years.
Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, has agreed to plead guilty on two tax misdemeanors related to his failure to pay his taxes in 2017 and 2018. He will also enter a probation agreement that will allow him to avoid jail time for possessing a handgun while intoxicated in 2018, a felony charge.
The gun charge centered on the younger Biden’s acknowledgement in his recent autobiography that he was using crack nearly every 15 minutes around the time he purchased a handgun in 2018, this despite claiming on a federal background check at the time that he was not using illicit drugs.
The deal only further added ammunition to several candidates’ arguments that the DOJ must be completely overhauled.
Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.) cited the deal as “another reason Americans have lost faith in Biden’s Justice Department.”
“While the Biden family gets a slap on the wrist with kid gloves, DOJ throws the kitchen sink at political opponents, raids the homes of pro-life advocates, and targets parents as ‘domestic terrorists,’” Scott said
This is another reason Americans have lost faith in Biden's Justice Department.
While the Biden family gets a slap on the wrist with kid gloves, DOJ throws the kitchen sink at political opponents, raids the homes of pro-life advocates, and targets parents as "domestic…
— Tim Scott (@votetimscott) June 20, 2023
“I can’t emphasize enough the importance of the Grassley and Comer investigations, the need for restoring credibility to our justice system, and defeating Joe Biden in 2024,” he added.
During a town hall with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday, Scott vowed to finish the investigation into Hunter Biden and the Biden family’s overseas business dealings, if elected.
“The big guy has some explaining to do,” Scott said of President Biden. “We cannot be the city on the hill if we are not first the land of law and justice.”
Nikki Haley said the plea deal “only raises further questions about Hunter Biden’s crimes and the double standard of justice in our federal government.”
“There is clearly a lot more the Biden family has to answer for,” she said.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis said it “looks like Hunter received a sweetheart deal and is not facing any charges on the massive corruption allegations.”
“If Hunter was not connected to the elite DC class he would have been put in jail a long time ago,” DeSantis said.
Looks like Hunter received a sweetheart deal and is not facing any charges on the massive corruption allegations. If Hunter was not connected to the elite DC class he would have been put in jail a long time ago. pic.twitter.com/tZcZOY1uST
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) June 20, 2023
Chris Christie discussed the case on Fox News Rundown and said he is concerned about how long the investigation took “for what turns out to be a pretty straightforward tax case and a gun possession case.”
“The amount of time this took was just ridiculous. And if I’d been a U.S. Attorney in that district in Delaware, this would have been done a couple of years ago,” said Christie, who previously served as a federal prosecutor.
He added that he’s also concerned about the way the Biden administration, “who says they’re so concerned about gun crime,” has handled the younger Biden’s case and other cases where they’ve been “soft on gun cases.”
“So I don’t know whether it was special treatment for Hunter Biden or just the fact that they love to pass gun laws, but they don’t like to enforce them,” he said.
Christie said the DOJ’s treatment “certainly looks” to be a product of favoritism.
He said, however, that a misdemeanor is appropriate for the tax-related crime.
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign took the charges as an opportunity to say the former president was right when he wrote on Truth Social earlier this month that, ““They’ll hit Hunter with something small to make their strike on me look ‘fair.’ Nothing about these Fascists is fair or honest. FIGHT!”
“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 said in a new post this week.
He called the deal a “massive COVERUP & FULL SCALE ELECTION INTERFERENCE “SCAM” THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN IN OUR COUNTRY BEFORE.”
Asa Hutchinson said that while the conclusion of the investigation by the admission of guilty is “an important step in resolving at least a portion of the controversies over Hunter Biden’s business dealings,” that it is “important for our country to have the whistle blower allegations answered…”
He called on the DOJ to be transparent in clearly stating the status of the investigation, as well as the reason for the five-year delay in concluding the investigation.
“If David Weiss, the Trump appointed U.S. Attorney has concluded the investigation, then the obvious question is whether a Special Prosecutor is needed to investigate the whistle blower allegations. There is a legitimate public interest in making sure all allegations are investigated and dealt with under the law,” he said.
Vivek Ramaswamy took a more harsh tone, calling the plea deal “a joke.”
“It’s a feigned retreat & reveals they’re even more scared than ever of scrutiny for the real crimes,” he said. “The real target is the audio tapes of the alleged bribe for Hunter & Joe Biden from the Ukrainian executive of oligarch-owned Burisma. And the hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer funds kicked back to Ukraine to make good on the favor. Don’t buy the deflection, it’s just a smokescreen.”
He went on to say it is “no accident that the farcical Hunter Biden ‘plea deal’ comes right after the Trump indictment.”