President Joe Biden’s decision to issue a sweeping pardon of his son Hunter Biden has set off backlash from Republicans and some Democrats. Although President-elect Donald Trump did not quite lean into criticism of Biden’s pardon in the way his fellow Republicans did, his campaign team did seize on the decision to raise funds.
“Do you remember when Biden said he would never pardon Hunter? That was a lie!” the Trump campaign said in an email to supporters Monday, calling the pardon “the sweet heart [sic] deal of the century.”
The email directs to a fundraising page for the Trump National Committee JFC that implores supporters to contribute to “a historic PATRIOT PUSH that says we’re not going to let them hide their CORRUPTION.”
Trump’s campaign is known to fundraise prolifically, using almost every event in the president-elect’s public life as an opportunity to ask supporters for money or sell merchandise.
What’s notable is the difference between this fundraising plea, which strongly condemns Biden’s pardon of his son, and Trump’s own post about it on Truth Social, in which he redirected focus to those convicted in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Trump himself pardoned close associates during his first term — including Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, who is now his pick for ambassador to France — and has repeatedly vowed to pardon Jan. 6 rioters, whom he has called “hostages.” Still, some political observers have argued that Biden’s decision to pardon his son may create an opening to legitimize Trump’s potential expansion of the pardon power and inject more distrust among the public in the country’s legal institutions.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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