OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A Democratic lawmaker broke ranks with his party and openly claimed over the weekend he believes first son Hunter Biden is ‘clearly’ guilty of having committed crimes. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut could not make his case, however, without taking jabs at Republicans and former President Donald Trump.
“Let me say something that you never heard a Republican member of Congress say in the four years of the Trump administration, which is that if Hunter Biden broke the law, he should be prosecuted,” Himes told MSNBC. “And it is clear that he broke the law with respect to taxes and possibly the ownership of a handgun. He should be held accountable for that.”
“If he traded on his father’s influence, he should be held accountable for that. And I’m emphasizing this because you never, ever heard a Republican say the same thing about Donald Trump or his family,” Himes continued.
Himes went on to claim that so far, no evidence has been found linking Joe Biden to his son’s crimes, which some could say is false considering Republicans have said publicly they have seen FBI documents from “highly credible” sources indicating tens of millions of allegedly illicit funds went to both men — though those allegations have not been presented in court nor have either man has been charged with any crimes.
Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed he had no information about any of his son’s business dealings.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper also recently called out Joe Biden over these allegations.
During a roundtable discussion about a potential political “blind spot” President Joe Biden may have regarding his son heading into the 2024 campaign cycle, Tapper played two different 2020 debate clips where then-President Donald Trump and then-Democratic nominee Biden got into heated arguments after Trump accused Hunter of “making a fortune” from business interests in countries like China and Ukraine, which Biden vehemently denied.
“Let’s turn to the Biden administration because Jeff [Zeleny], you have some new reporting that President Biden might have a blind spot, according to people around him when it comes to his son Hunter Biden’s legal troubles and concerns about how this might impact his desire to be reelected. What do you got? What are you hearing?” Tapper said to begin the segment.
“Well, look, this is something that the President was hoping to put behind him. They were hoping that the plea agreement would go through, et cetera. Now there is very likely to be a trial unfolding at the same time as a presidential campaign. Even worse, a second special counsel’s investigation on top of the one that’s already investigating the President for classified documents,” Zeleny responded.
He added:
So the point, talking to a bunch of advisors, is that this is something that is not discussed around the President in his orbit because they do not think voters care about it. They think voters care about the economy, and other matters. They’re probably right about that. However, we know that this will be a central piece of the Republican debate and Republican talking points next week and beyond, the Hunter Biden situation. So what do swing voters think of Hunter Biden? As of now, they’ve never sort of drawn a correlation or blamed the President for his son’s conduct. They feel sympathy for him, et cetera.
But is there a blind spot directly around him and the campaign by not talking about this? It’s verboten. You can’t talk about Hunter Biden. We’ll see. This is definitely going to be a topic on the debate stage this week.
“Yes. And Kristen, Glenn Kessler from The Washington Post had a fact check about Joe Biden from earlier this month noting that Hunter Biden admitted in court in July that he was, in fact, paid substantial sums from Chinese companies,” Tapper responded.
“Kessler wrote, Hunter Biden reported nearly $2.4 million in income in 2017 and 2.2 million in 2018, most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests. But this directly goes against what Joe Biden said in the debate in 2020 with Donald Trump. Take a listen,” he said.
