Republicans were unimpressed and fumed at the Department of Justice on Tuesday after the agency announced that President Joe Biden’s son Hunter would be charged with firearm and tax offences.
The reactions poured in on social media through comments to reporters just minutes after the indictment was announced, with none other than former President Donald Trump leading the charge.
The twice-indicted ex-president, himself facing more than 60 criminal charges across two prosecutions, raged that the Department of Justice was supposedly giving Mr Biden a “traffic ticket” — though the DoJ’s statement indicated that Mr Biden would be forced to report to a probation officer for up to two years.
"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!" wrote Mr Trump on his Truth Social platform.
He added: “People are going wild over the Hunter Biden Scam with the DOJ!”
James Comer, the GOP chair of the House Oversight Committee, reacted similarly. Mr Comer’s committee is heading up the Republican House majority’s efforts to investigate the Biden family on longstanding allegations that have circulated on the right about the president and his family’s supposed influence peddling in China and Ukraine.
“Hunter Biden is getting away with a slap on the wrist when growing evidence uncovered by the House Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery,” wrote the congressman.
Others aligned with Mr Trump were of a similar mind, though the reaction from the GOP establishment and, in particular, Senate Republicans was particularly muted as the news broke.
Most who criticised the development seemed to fixate on the idea that the DoJ was ignoring more serious charges that the younger Biden was supposedly guilty of. But no hard evidence or witnesses have emerged to prove the existence of the influence-peddling scheme that Republicans have long alleged the Biden family participated in across the globe, in countries like Ukraine and China. Mr Comer’s committee has led the effort to produce such evidence, but at present the allegations largely centred around vague language that the GOP has sought to present as proof of a crime.
That was evident in the comment from Byron Donalds, a freshman House representative from Florida who has ingratiated himself with the pro-Trump right.
“When does evading millions in federal income taxes get a slap on the wrist?” asked Mr Donalds. “@POTUS, where is YOUR $5M from Burisma?”
The plea agreement too is likely to cause consternations in pro-Trump circles, as the ex-president’s allies have routinely insisted that there should have been no difference between how Mr Trump and the president’s son were treated, despite the former president facing the unique accusation of obstructing investigators.
There was already evidence of that line of thinking from Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, who complained that the deal “reeks of favoritism”.
