Former President Donald J. Trump and his Republican allies have sought to delegitimize the criminal investigation into action by claiming that Democrats have “weaponized” the justice system. The allegations only intensified after a jury convicted Mr Trump last month of 34 felonies in the money laundering case.
In pushing that narrative, they tend to ignore an awkward fact: President Biden did not stop the Justice Department’s investigation into his own son. On Tuesday, the contradictions intensified when a jury convicted Hunter Biden of three felony counts of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun in 2018.
The ruling did not satisfy Republicans, who downplayed the results and continued to insist that Democrats had turned the criminal justice system into a partisan tool. But under tremendous political pressure, the 12 jurors in the case appeared serious, weighing the evidence and giving their convictions. The system looks more or less as expected.
Of course, there is an argument to be made that Mr. Trump’s money case and Hunter Biden’s gun case are politically motivated. Both can be characterized as relatively marginal – although there is a lot of evidence to support the charges – cases where the prosecutor may not bother if the accused are not present. But it is in neither party’s interest to make that point.
Democrats even lined up after Hunter Biden’s conviction to show how much they respect the criminal justice system, often clearly indicating that they don’t criticize the case as prosecutorial overreach. Despite the Republican denunciations of Mr. Trump’s trial as a corrupt fake, they argued, important politicians from both parties who committed crimes demanded to be convicted.
“The division here is amazing, and it’s a reminder that one political party is committed to the rule of law, and the other is not – it’s that simple,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, during the hearing on Tuesday. .
Mr. McGovern added: “Republicans simply cannot assume that the presidential candidate, your presumptive candidate, is a convicted felon. This is not the result of a fraudulent process or a grand conspiracy by the Biden administration.
Republicans, for their part, downplayed the importance of prosecutors’ persuasive efforts in the jury that found President Biden’s son guilty of three felonies. The case was led by a Trump appointee, David C. Weiss, who was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland to handle the investigation and eventually created a special counsel.
Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, offered brief and mild praise for the verdict before reiterating his baseless claim that President Biden had been involved in a bribery scheme.
“Today’s ruling is a step toward accountability, but until the Justice Department investigates everyone involved” in the scheme, Mr. Comer said in a statement, “it will be clear that department officials continue to cover up” the president.
After the verdict, Mr. Biden expressed his personal support for his son but said he accepted the outcome of the case. He was also quoted in an interview with ABC News last week in which he said that he would not use official powers to pardon his son, if he was convicted.
“As I said last week, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers his appeal,” Mr. Biden said.
But Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said the trial of the president’s son was “no more than a distraction” from what she claimed without evidence was the “real crime” of the Biden family.
While downplaying the results, some Republicans also argued that Mr. Weiss nearly struck down what they considered a “sweetheart” plea deal last year with Hunter Biden. The agreement would resolve the gun issue and separate charges for failing to pay taxes for years during his drug addiction.
The deal fell apart after questions from a federal judge said the two sides disagreed on whether the agreement precluded further charges against Mr. Biden on other topics. Mr. Weiss later obtained felony charges in both cases; Hunter Biden is set to go on trial for tax evasion in September.
Other Republicans simply ignored Hunter Biden’s verdict. Representative Jim Jordan – Republican of Ohio who led a weaponization of the federal government subcommittee – refused through a spokesman to comment on the verdict.
Moments after Hunter Biden was convicted, Republican staff members on the Judiciary Committee led by Mr. Jordan, however, announced that they would hold a hearing this summer on the “defects” of the New York case against Mr. Trump. Last month, a jury unanimously found that he falsified business records to cover up payments to porn actresses during the 2016 election campaign.
The committee also confirmed that it had obtained approval for “public testimony” by the Manhattan district attorney who brought the case against Mr. Trump, Alvin L. Bragg, and Matthew Colangelo, a white-collar prosecutor who participated in the trial. Mr. Colangelo had been a Biden administration official at the Justice Department before joining Mr. Bragg’s office in December 2022.
Democrats, however, used the opportunity to point out that Biden’s Justice Department has also brought criminal charges against members of the president’s party, including Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who is on trial on corruption charges, and Representative Henry Cuellar. , a Texas Democrat was indicted last month on bribery and money laundering charges.
Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on Mr. Comer’s Oversight Committee, emphasized the difference in approach.
In the same hearing with Mr. McGovern, he noted that he “didn’t hear a single Democrat anywhere in the country cry ‘fraud,’ cry ‘corrected,’ cry ‘rigged,’ cry ‘kangaroo court'” in response to Hunter Biden’s lawsuit. federal convictions, as Republicans did after Mr. Trump’s conviction — even as they pushed conspiracy theories that President Biden controlled the country’s case.
“Compare and contrast the difference in reaction between Republicans and Democrats,” Mr. Raskin said. “Republicans are attacking the entire justice system and the rule of law because they don’t like how one case happened, while the son of the president of the United States is being prosecuted and I don’t hear one Democrat crying revenge.”
Luke Broadwater contributed reports from Washington.