Former President Donald Trump published a post on his Truth Social site on Tuesday afternoon demeaning the federal prosecutor who obtained a plea deal from Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
The wording in Trump’s post suggested that the punishment for Biden, who pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes, was too lenient. Trump went on to make the bizarre suggestion that U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who led the investigation into the president’s son, should have pursued capital punishment. A suggestion that appears to make it clear that Trump is more interested in seeing his political rival’s family members punished than having the U.S. tax code enforced to the full extent allowed.
“Weiss is a COWARD … who never had the courage to do what everyone knows should have been done,” Trump wrote. “He gave out a traffic ticket instead of a death sentence.”
Trump also blamed “two Democrat [sic] Senators in Delaware” who he said “got to choose and/or approve” Weiss for his current position in government. In reality, it was Trump himself who nominated Weiss to the U.S. Attorney post for the state of Delaware in 2018.
After Biden made his plea deal arrangement, Trump and his GOP allies in Congress were furious that further charges were not being brought against him. Several Republicans, including Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, also continue to push unfounded claims that Hunter Biden — and possibly Joe Biden, too — committed more serious crimes – though they have yet to reveal any basis for those assertions.
Many social media commentators harangued Trump for implying that Biden should receive the death penalty for any crime he’s accused of, much less the tax crimes that he had pleaded guilty to, when Trump himself has been charged with dozens of high-level crimes relating to the improper removal of sensitive government documents to his Florida home, compromising U.S. national security interests in the process.
“Trump thinks Hunter Biden should receive the death penalty for a tax offense? What does he think the penalty should be for an espionage act crime?” asked former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.
Trump’s complaints about Hunter Biden are also hypocritical. As Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin has pointed out, Trump’s business has been found guilty of tax fraud and falsifying business records. Citing reporting from The New York Times, Levin added: “Trump himself reportedly ‘participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud.’”
Trump is also the “beneficiary of the two-tier system, on account of being a wealthy guy with power,” wrote Levin, taking note of the fact that higher income earners come under less scrutiny from tax investigators than those with more modest incomes.