WASHINGTON — 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 Biden’s 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.
Many Republicans in Congress who have been longtime critics of Hunter Biden‘s conduct swiftly attacked Biden’s decision in social media posts, calling the move an effort to “avoid accountability” and casting the president as a “hypocrite.”
“His FBI and DOJ raided Barron’s bedroom and Melania’s closet at Mar-a-Lago,” said an X post from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., referring to the federal raid on Mar-a-Lago in connection to the now-dismissed classified documents case against former President Donald Trump. “Joe Biden is a liar and a hypocrite, all the way to the end.”
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said in a post to X that the president “will go down as one of the most corrupt presidents in American history.”
“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,” said an X post from Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chair of the House Oversight Committee, which has sent criminal referrals to the Department of Justice recommending charges against Hunter Biden.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said that Biden’s 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,” said his X post.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argued that Americans could likely 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 in a post. “What they can’t forgive is Biden lying about it repeatedly before the election.”
The most immediate reactions to the announcement came overwhelmingly from Republicans, though Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo., also weighed in to criticize 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 in a post. “This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”
In Biden’s statement explaining his decision, the elder Biden argued that his son was “being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”
Biden’s plans to pardon his son, which were first reported by NBC News, came after the president said publicly multiple times that he would not pardon Hunter Biden.
“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.”
Frank Thorp V, Julie Tsirkin and Jonathan Allen contributed.
