Prominent liberal commentators and media outlets have argued that Hunter Biden’s recent guilty verdict undermines former President Trump’s claims that the justice system was weaponized against him.
Media outlets including CNN, The New York Times and The Associated Press, as well as journalists like CNN’s Jim Acosta and NBC News’ Chuck Todd, said the conviction of President Biden’s own son proves the justice system is not being used as a weapon against President Trump, who has argued that his recent conviction was an act of government persecution.
“I think this is a huge blow to the Trump campaign’s ability to ignore a conviction,” Todd, NBC News’ chief political analyst, said Tuesday after Hunter Biden’s conviction.
One trial down, one to go: Hunter Biden next to go on trial on federal tax charges
Liberal media pundits argue that Hunter Biden’s federal conviction this week proves that former President Trump is not the target of a “weaponized” justice system, as he claims.
“This has been a fraudulent and dishonorable trial. The real verdict will be handed down by the American people on November 5th,” Trump said after being found guilty of 34 charges, including falsifying business records, late last month.
“This has been a wrongful decision from day one, by a conflicted judge who should never have been allowed to try this case. Never. We will fight for the Constitution. This case is far from over,” Trump told reporters outside the Manhattan courtroom.
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden was convicted Tuesday of making false statements about a gun purchase, making false statements about information required to be kept by federally licensed gun dealers and possession of a firearm by an unlawful user of or addict to a controlled substance.
“Politically, this is a big blow to Trump,” Todd told MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera. “He’s desperately trying to weaponize this. This has been a Republican talking point for years.”
“There has never been any evidence to back up what they’re saying,” he added.
“If they’re hoping to persuade moderates with this, I find Trump’s arguments about the justice system less persuasive in light of this,” Todd said.
New York Times article Reporters Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Michael Gold made the same point, writing that Trumpworld withered after Hunter Biden was convicted because it didn’t fit their narrative that Trump was being targeted.
“Many of Trump’s supporters were quietly rooting for acquittal,” they wrote. “The argument was made: An acquittal would have been further evidence that the American justice system is rigged in Biden’s favor and against Trump. Tuesday’s guilty verdict was inconvenient for that argument.”
The article also quoted an anonymous Trump supporter as saying that a private source in the Trump campaign claimed that “as soon as it became clear that the Hunter Biden gun scandal was not going to affect President Biden, the issue disappeared from the political messaging.”
Acosta, guest hosting CNN’s “Laura Coates Live,” read the Times article: “There was discussion about how an acquittal of Hunter Biden would benefit Trump and could raise tens of millions of dollars in additional funding, a plan to cite it as further evidence that the justice system is rigged.”
“Oh no,” Acosta said, looking at the camera before airing footage of Democrats accepting Biden’s conviction.
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President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden walk outside the federal courthouse as his trial continues on gun crime charges, in Wilmington, Delaware, USA, June 11, 2024. (Reuters/Hannah Beyer)
Associated Press Similarly, it reported that Hunter Biden’s conviction “damaged” Trump’s case.
“Republicans’ claims that Joe Biden is ordering prosecutors to target political opponents are undermined by the fact that a Justice Department led by Biden has indicted the president’s son, while Biden has refused to drop the investigation or pardon Hunter Biden,” the statement said.
NBC News reporters Jonathan Allen, Alan Smith and Katherine Doyle one sheet Just hours after Biden’s sentencing, he posted an article titled Hunter Biden’s conviction undermines Trump’s main talking points, noting that “some Republicans” believe the verdict “deals a major blow to one of Trump’s favorite talking points and bolsters Biden’s claims that he respects the rule of law.”
“But some Republicans say it will be hard for Biden to convince voters that he has weaponized the justice system, especially after his own son was attacked,” the article read.
“Convicting Hunter Biden certainly weakens the argument,” Republican donor Dan Eberhart told the outlet.
“To me, the justice system is working,” he added.
“At the very least, it will blunt the momentum and clarity with which the Trump campaign has made its case about Biden’s weaponization of the justice system,” said one anonymous Republican strategist.
They added that it’s “less bumper sticker-like than it used to be.”
CNN analysis Senior reporter Stephen Collinson also brandished the story.
“If Biden had been acquitted, Republicans could have credibly argued that a biased jury in a state where everyone knows the president’s family had proven their case,” he wrote. “But a guilty verdict undermines another one of their political arguments.”
Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower on Thursday, May 30, 2024, after being convicted of 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records. (Felipe Ramares for Fox News Digital)
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“Hunter Biden’s sentence also contradicts central arguments in multiple legal defenses that Trump has asserted in four criminal cases, several civil cases, and throughout his presidential campaign,” Collinson continued. “This is a false notion that Trump is the victim of a legal system weaponized by the Department of Justice that targets only Republicans.”
Caroline Leavitt, national spokesperson for the Trump campaign, responded to Hunter Biden’s sentence in a statement, saying, “This trial is nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden crime family, who extorted tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine. The villainous Joe Biden’s reign of the Biden family criminal empire will come to an end on November 5th. Biden will never again sell his access to government for personal gain.”
