CNN aired a montage on Tuesday evening comparing and contrasting the very different reaction of Fox News hosts to the criminal convictions of Donald Trump and Hunter Biden at their respective trials, a surprisingly direct attack on a media rival.
Introduced by anchor Abby Phillip, the segment presented the likes of Jeanine Pirro declaring in the wake of the Trump verdict on May 30 that the outcome “goes against the ilk of who we are as Americans and our faith in the criminal justice system”, before being seen praising the Delaware jury for “not being intimidated” by the Bidens and recognising that the case in front of them was “clear-cut… and that no one is above the law”.
Laura Ingraham was shown sneering that “we all need to shop at Banana Republic from now on” in response to Trump’s being found guilty and then insisting that the Bidens had escaped accountability for “their sleazy, corrupt conduct” for years but “today, their luck ran out”.
And Jesse Watters was seen accusing “weak lawyers and talentless political bloodhounds” of being willing to “destroy the rule of law” to prosecute Trump – but saying that the Biden verdict “gave me a little boost of confidence in the American legal system”.
Phillip wrapped up the feature by commenting: “Yes, these are two different trials under very different circumstances. Hunter Biden’s was federal, Trump’s was not. The crimes and the evidence? All completely different.
“You can’t claim the justice system is dead because of a single conviction while also praising it for another.
“And you can’t claim President Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department to go after his enemies when that same department just convicted his own son.”
Hunter Biden being found guilty earlier in the day on all three felony gun charges by a Wilmington jury marked the first time in American history a sitting president’s child has been convicted of a crime and came less than two weeks after the former president was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in order to protect his reputation ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
President Joe Biden reacted to the news of his son’s fate by saying he was proud of Hunter overcoming his substance abuse problems but accepted the verdict while the Trump campaign, predictably, attacked the “Biden crime family” in a statement that initially wished the defendant well “in his recovery and legal affairs” before the line was nixed.
Far-right Republicans, meanwhile, appeared unprepared for the outcome, with the likes of Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk scrambling to complain on social media: “The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched.”
Former Trump administration official Stephen Miller called the outcome “a giant misdirection” and an attempt by the Justice Department “to sell to a pliant media that is all too willing to be duped”.
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer said the conviction was only “a step toward accountability” while MAGA congressman Matt Gaetz insisted the gun case had been “kinda dumb” from the beginning.