GOP lawmakers began publicly fuming shortly after President Joe Biden announced that he was pardoning his son Hunter Biden.
President-elect Donald Trump's communications director, Steven Cheung, reacted to the announcement without naming the president or his son.
"The failed witch hunts against President Trump have proven that the Democrat-controlled DOJ and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system," Cheung said in a statement.
"That system of justice must be fixed and due process must be restored for all Americans, which is exactly what President Trump will do as he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people," he continued.
Shortly after, Trump himself reacted publicly to the news, invoking prosecutions related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!" Trump said on Truth Social.
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Many Republicans in Congress who have been longtime critics of Hunter Biden’s conduct swiftly attacked the decision on social media, calling it an effort to “avoid accountability” and casting the president as a “hypocrite.”
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"His FBI and DOJ raided Barron’s bedroom and Melania’s closet at Mar-a-Lago," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said on X, referring to the federal raid on Trump's home in Florida in connection with the now-dismissed classified documents case against Trump. "Joe Biden is a liar and a hypocrite, all the way to the end."
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said on X that Biden "will go down as one of the most corrupt presidents in American history."
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chair of the House Oversight Committee, said on X, "It’s unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability." Comer's committee has sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department recommending charges against Hunter Biden.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the decision "shocked" him.
"I’m shocked Pres Biden pardoned his son Hunter bc he said many many times he wouldn’t & I believed him Shame on me," he said on X.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argued that Americans could be likely to sympathize with Biden while still criticizing the move.
"Most Americans can sympathize with a father’s decision to pardon his son, even if they disagree," he said on X. "What they can’t forgive is Biden lying about it repeatedly before the election."
The most immediate reactions came overwhelmingly from Republicans, though some Democrats also weighed in. Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo., criticized Biden’s decision.
“While as a father I certainly understand President @JoeBiden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” Polis said on X. “This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”
Similarly, Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona said he thought Biden "got this one wrong."
"This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution," Stanton said on X. "Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers."
But prior to Biden's announcement, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland spoke about the possibility of a pardon earlier Sunday to offer a possible explanation of what a pardon’s basis could be.
“There is a defense called selective prosecution,” Raskin said on CNN. “If you can show that the government has a set of cases that all look alike, but they pick one person out to prosecute based on, say, a political animus towards the person, which essentially is the claim that Donald Trump has been making about why he was targeted, the power exists for the president to show mercy for people who have committed crimes and either suffered some kind of injustice in the process or the punishment is disproportionate.”
In his statement explaining his decision, Biden used similar reasoning to argue that his son was "being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted."
Biden's plans to pardon his son were first reported by NBC News. He had said publicly multiple times that he would not pardon him.
"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," the president said in the statement. "There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution."
Hunter Biden was set to be sentenced later this month for convictions on federal gun charges and federal tax evasion charges. The charges were related to two separate cases. He had pleaded guilty to the federal tax evasion charges and was convicted by a jury after a trial on the gun charges.
Frank Thorp V, Julie Tsirkin and Jonathan Allen contributed.
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