Donald Trump is not ruling out granting a pardon to ‘bad boy’ Hunter Biden if the former president is re-elected next month, after four years of railing against the ‘laptop from hell’.
Trump made the comment to conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, who asked him directly in an interview if he would do so, immediately after Trump told him he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “in two seconds” if he was re-elected.
“I wouldn’t take it off the books,” Trump said, using a phrase similar to “off the table” that generally means something done without being disclosed or accounted for.
“Look, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they’ve done to me, who’s persecuted me so brutally, despite what, and Hunter is a bad guy,” Trump told his interviewer.
‘There’s no doubt about it. He’s been a bad boy. All you had to do is see the laptop from hell. But I think it’s very bad for our country.
The president’s son faces sentencing in December on federal gun charges after being found guilty of lying about his drug addiction when filling out a form to purchase a firearm. He pleaded guilty to separate federal tax charges in September.
Donald Trump stated that he thought it “would seem terrible” to prosecute Hillary Clinton and omitted the times he called for her prosecution and imprisonment. He was asked if he would forgive Hunter Biden, convicted on weapons charges.
A lot would have to happen before Trump, who granted a series of pardons to political allies including Steve Bannon and Roger Stone during his final weeks in office, would have to consider a pardon for Hunter Biden.
One possibility is that President Joe Biden will pardon his son, although Biden has repeatedly said he would rule out such action. Trump raised a major issue about Hunter’s conduct in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign after information about his sordid lifestyle and business practices surfaced from a laptop handed in by the owner of a Wilmington repair shop.
As he has done in the past, Trump said he could have jailed his 2016 political rival, Hillary Clinton, although she was never charged with a crime and the FBI recommended in 2016 that she not be charged in connection with her use of a web server. home email.
“I could have gone after Hillary. He could have gotten Hillary Clinton very easily. And when they said lock her up, every time they said lock her up, you know, they started, 30,000 people, lock her up, lock her up. What did I do? I always say take it easy, just relax. We are winning. Take it easy. Take it easy,” Trump said.
The statement documents the several times Trump he himself said ‘lock her up’ when talking about Clinton.
‘Bad guy’: Trump said he wouldn’t ‘take it out of the book’ when asked if he would pardon Hunter Biden, apparently without ruling him out
I could have put her in jail. And I decided I didn’t want to do that. I thought it would look terrible,” Trump said, glossing over the moment he tweeted: “Everyone is wondering why the Justice Department (and the FBI) isn’t investigating all the dishonesty going on with the corrupt Hillary and the Democrats.”
(Biden himself said in New Hampshire days ago “lock him up” when talking about Trump, in a mistake he immediately tried to backtrack by saying lock him up “politically.”
I could have put her in jail. And I decided I didn’t want to do that. I thought it would look terrible. You had the wife of the president of the United States going to jail. I thought it would be very bad if we did that. And I made sure that didn’t happen, okay? I thought it would be bad. What I didn’t know was that they were going to play dirty with me. Who thinks that?’ Trump said.
Trump’s comments ignore his 2017 call to the Justice Department to investigate Clinton and her reported 2018 comments to her White House lawyer who wanted her to be prosecuted.
Trump said in 2020, shortly after launching his re-election effort: “Lock them up.” You should lock them up. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary.
His current rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, accused him Wednesday of making an “enemies list” and cited his recent comments about facing an “enemy within.”
Trump himself faces a resumption of his trial on January 6 after Election Day. Smith, the special prosecutor who brought charges in that case and the classified documents case, is appealing a Trump-appointed lawyer’s decision to dismiss that case in Florida.
He faces sentencing late next month in his hush money case in New York, where he is unlikely to be jailed.