Donald Trump isn’t ruling out issuing a pardon for ‘bad boy’ Hunter Biden if the former president is reelected next month – after railing for four years about the ‘laptop from hell.’
Trump made the comment to conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, who asked him straight up in an interview if he would do so, immediately after Trump told him he would fire special counsel Jack Smith ‘within two seconds’ if reelected.
‘I wouldn’t take it off the books,’ Trump said, using an phrase similar to ‘off the table’ that usually means something done without being disclosed or accounted for.
‘See, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they’ve done to me, where they’ve gone after me so viciously, despite what – and Hunter’s a bad boy,’ Trump told his interviewer.
‘There’s no question about it. He’s been a bad boy. All you had to do is see the laptop from hell. But I happen to think it’s very bad for our country.’
The president’s son faces sentencing in December on federal gun charges after being convicted of lying about his drug addiction when filling out a form for a handgun purchase. He pleased guilty to separate federal tax charges in September.
Donald Trump claimed he thought it would ‘look terrible’ to prosecute Hillary Clinton, and papered over the times he called for her prosecution and incarceration. He got asked whether he would pardon Hunter Biden, who was convicted on gun charges
A lot would have to happen before Trump, who issued a raft of pardons for political allies including Steve Bannon and Roger Stone during his final weeks in office, would have to consider a Hunter Biden pardon.
One possibility is that President Joe Biden would pardon his son, although Biden has said repeatedly he would rule out such an action. Trump made a major issue of Hunter’s conduct in the last weeks of the 2020 campaign after information about his sordid lifestyle and business practices emerged from a laptop turned over by a Wilmington repair shop owner.
As he has in the past, Trump said he could have jailed 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 home email server.
‘I could have gone after Hillary. I could have gotten Hillary Clinton very easily. And when they say lock her up, whenever they said lock her, you know, they’d start, 30,000 people, lock her up, lock her up. What did I do? I always say take it easy, just relax. We’re winning. Take it easy. Take it easy,’ Trump said.
The statement papers over the several times Trump himself said ‘lock her up’ when speaking about Clinton.
‘Bad boy’: Trump said he wouldn’t ‘take it off the book,’ when asked if he would pardon Hunter Biden, apparently not ruling it out
‘I could have had her put in jail. And I decided I didn’t want to do that. I thought it would look terrible,’ Trump said, glossing over the time he tweeted: ‘Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems’
(Biden himself said in New Hampshire days ago ‘lock him up’ when speaking about Trump, in a flub he immediately tried to walk back by saying lock him up ‘politically.’
‘I could have had her put 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 is that they were going to play dirty with me. Who thinks that?’ Trump said.
Trump’s comments overlook his 2017 call for the Justice Department to investigate Clinton and his reported 2018 comments to his White House counsel that he wanted her prosecuted.
Trump said in 2020 soon after he launched his reelection effort, ‘Lock them up. You should lock them up. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary.’
His current rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, on Wednesday accused him of making an ‘enemies list’ and cited his recent comments on facing an ‘enemy from within.’
Trump himself faces the resumption of his January 6 trial after Election Day. Smith, the special counsel who brought charges in that case and the classified documents case, is appealing a Trump-appointed lawyer’s decision dismissing that case in Florida.
He faces sentencing late next month in his New York hush money case, where he is unlikely to get jail time.
