Hunter Biden is now officially the first son of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime. And while the landmark verdict during an election year might seem like a surefire way to excite Donald Trump supporters, the MAGA nation is still steaming mad about it online.
Because, of course, they are.
“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” the Trump campaign said a statement to CNN on Tuesday. “Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit.”
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(In an initial statement to CNN, the campaign also included well wishes to Hunter Biden in his “recovery and legal affairs,” but removed the sentence when it was sent to other outlets an hour later.)
Biden, 54, was found guilty of all three charges in connection with an October 2018 federal firearms application. Prosecutors say that while buying a $5,000 gun, Biden lied on the form when he was asked about whether he was addicted to drugs.
The verdict, which the jury deliberated on for about three hours, came after a weeklong trial that exposed Biden’s love life and harrowing drug habits over the last decade. Three of Biden’s exes and his 30-year-old daughter were among the key witnesses in the trial, all detailing intimate moments with the president’s son and his struggles with addiction.
Despite the slam-dunk case for the prosecution, Trumpworld immediately took to X to complain that the president’s son won’t spend a day in prison and that he was convicted of the wrong crimes. The maximum sentence for the charges is 25 years in prison, though experts believe he will be sentenced to far less. Biden also faces a federal trial in September for allegedly not paying his taxes.
“Liable to more than 20 years in prison. Won’t serve a day,” former Trump White House adviser and current talk radio host Sebastian Gorka wrote on X.
Another presidential child, Donald Trump Jr., also weighed in, retweeting a post that called the conviction the “ultimate red herring of red herrings” because the Department of Justice had not pursued other possible cases.
“This is exactly right!!!!” Trump Jr. added.
Meanwhile, Sean Davis, co-founder of the conservative outlet The Federalist, fumed that Hunter wasn’t being prosecuted for a grab-bag of wildly speculative allegations like “money laundering, tax evasion for his Burisma bribes, illegal influence peddling, and operating as an unregistered foreign agent of corrupt foreign governments.”
Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, took to X to blame Biden’s Justice Department.
“DOJ is running election interference for Joe Biden—that’s why DOJ did NOT charge Hunter with being an unregistered foreign agent (FARA) or any crime connected with foreign corruption. Why? Because all the evidence would lead back to JOE,” he wrote on X, seemingly trying to link the president and his son’s finances.
“DOJ is Joe’s election protection racket,” he added.
Kash Patel, who served in Trump’s Department of Defense and was a National Security Council adviser, praised the justice system for Biden’s verdict—and then immediately rebuked it to support Trump.
“Hunter Biden's guilty verdict is a rare example of constitutional justice, one not where individuals receive biased treatment based on their last name,” Patel wrote in a statement. “The jury was able to consider the prosecution and defense evidence in full, in accordance with due process—a right that was single-handedly bastardized against President Trump by the judge, jury and prosecutors in New York.”
Some Republicans, however, believed the verdict was a direct hit to MAGA complaints about the “weaponization” of the justice system. Republican donor Dan Eberhart told NBC that Biden's conviction “definitely weakens the argument” and shows that the system is “working.”
“Today’s verdict is a step towards ensuring equal application of the law, regardless of one’s last name,” Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) wrote on X.
Still, at least one super Trumpkin was not impressed.
“The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wrote on X.
