Donald Trump has said Joe Biden should now pardon those imprisoned for the January 6th Capitol riots after he pardoned his son Hunter, claiming the conviction was “politically motivated”. The Telegraph has more.
The outgoing President had repeatedly said he would not pardon Hunter, 54, who faced spending years in prison on felony firearms and tax charges, but did so on Sunday night.
“Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice,” Mr. Trump said of the decision on social media.
The Republican called for the release of the “J-6 protesters”, a reference to Trump supporters who stormed Congress after he was defeated by Mr. Biden in the 2021 elections.
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” wrote Mr. Trump, who is preparing to return to the White House after defeating Kamala Harris in this year’s Presidential election.
Federal prosecutors have convicted more than 1,100 Capitol rioters, with over 600 serving jail sentences.
Mr. Biden, a Democrat, claimed the charges against his son, who has struggled with drug addiction but has been sober for five years, were politically motivated.
“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,” he said on Sunday.
Worth reading in full.
In the Spectator, Freddy Gray says the Hunter Biden fiasco has been political from start to finish:
Joe and Jill repeatedly made out that, in contrast to Donald Trump, their respect for the justice system meant they wouldn’t use his Presidential power to pardon Hunter. But now they have nothing to lose.
The “raw politics” Biden is referring to is not just the Republican efforts to prosecute Hunter; rather Joe’s own politicking led him to stand aside as the wheels of justice ground against his son. It’s worth remembering that Hunter was initially let off with a judicial slap on the wrist. Then, as the Democratic-led lawfare campaign against Donald Trump started to backfire politically, the Department of Justice suddenly did charge Hunter over three felony counts relating to his purchase of a handgun in 2018.
Sam Ashworth-Hayes in the Telegraph says the pardon only shows once again than the Biden Presidency is built on lies and all the same sins it accuses Trump of being gulity of:
For months leading up to the 2020 election Democrats thundered from the pulpit about Trump’s venal, self-serving nature, how he was a liar unfit to serve as President, and how he needed to be replaced to protect American democracy.
In order to achieve this end, they proceeded to lie about Hunter Biden’s laptop, lie about Russian collusion with Trump, and repeatedly stated their doubts about any vaccine announced before polling day in 2020. How lucky for them, then, that the announcement of Pfizer’s success was delayed due to a change in trial protocol after pressure was poured on the company by public health officials, with the new data available just after the election.
Once in office, the Democrats set about making sure Trump wouldn’t win again. A series of politically motivated prosecutions were rolled out as the party rediscovered the zeal for upholding the law that so curiously left it during the Black Lives Matter riots.
In 2020, suggesting crime was bad was so unfashionable Democratic strategists were ostracised for merely suggesting that heaping praise on rioters might be unpopular with voters. In 2024, new and innovative legal theories were deployed to make sure Trump and his allies felt the full force of their disapproval.
Social media companies were pressured to censor Covid content the White House disliked, and traditional media allies were drawn into colluding in the delusion that Biden was fit to govern despite the evidence available to anyone with eyes. And when after all this they lost anyway, Biden made sure to pardon his son before he left office.
Remind me again: who was the threat to democracy and standards in the oval office here?
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