Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds sparred with CNN host Kate Bolduan over the legal system’s treatment of former President Donald Trump versus the Biden family.
A jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case alleging the former president falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors alleged the cover-up of the payment and alleged affair with Daniels was an attempt to interfere in the 2016 presidential election results.
Donalds argued the justice system holds a double standard between the treatment of Trump and the alleged crimes committed by President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. (RELATED: ‘RIGGED: Death Of The American Voter’ — Stream Now)
“The litmus test is not for protecting Republicans, it’s for protecting our Constitution,” Donalds told Bolduan. “It’s for actually protecting the institutions of our country. You know, I’m sick and tired too of being lectured by Joe Biden and everybody on the radical left saying they’re trying to save democracy. No, you’re not. Not when you twist the law into legal pretzels just to get a conviction. Not when you are constantly, veraciously investigating the same man over and over and over again simply because you don’t like his tweets, or you don’t like his manners or his mannerisms. This goes all the way back to 2015, 2016 when they were spying on his campaign. When the FISA process was abused to go after a political rival back then.”
“Once you go down that line, you actually destroy America,” the congressman continued. “And that’s where Joe Biden and the radical left are taking us, and it is disgraceful to see it happening in our country.”
Byron Donalds and CNN host go at it about Trump conviction: pic.twitter.com/U2OzkH4Wtc
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 31, 2024
Bolduan argued there is “no evidence” President Joe Biden has any involvement with Bragg’s case, and said Hunter Biden is being taken to trial soon over a three-count indictment involving gun charges. (RELATED: Turley Says He Is ‘Saddened’ By Guilty Verdict, Suggests Case Drove Major Wedge In American Legal System)
“Well I’m glad you brought that up, the only reason why the Department of Justice is prosecuting Hunter Biden is because House Republicans investigated what was going on with Hunter Biden,” Donalds said.
“But you can say that, but that also suggests impartiality on the part of —” Bolduan interrupted.
“We shamed the Department of Justice into looking into Hunter Biden,” Donalds said. “They tried to shove this gun charge into some other charge underneath it and it took a judge in Florida to look at the indictment, the agreement that the main justice made with Hunter Biden’s attorneys to look at that and says, ‘this is a joke. I’m not signing this.’ And that is the only reason why the prosecution is going forward with it.”
Donalds said Biden storing classified documents in his garage and his University of Pennsylvania office is a violation of the Espionage Act, though Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to prosecute him by writing in his report that the president is a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
“I’m not gonna tell you what’s fair,” Bolduan said. “I’m just gonna tell you this is the same Justice Department that’s taking Hunter Biden to trial in Delaware next week.”
“Only because they were shamed to do so,” Donalds said.
Department of Justice special counsel David Weiss charged Hunter Biden with three counts for providing false statements knowingly purchasing and possessing a gun while under the influence of drugs in 2018. He initially had planned to avoid jail time by signing a pretrial diversion agreement related to his felony gun charge, though Delaware U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika scrutinized an immunity provision and caused the agreement to collapse.
In Bragg’s trial, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan told the jury they did not have to agree on the “unlawful” means committed by Trump, and instructed them to consider three crimes: a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), the falsification of other business records or violations of tax fraud.
Many legal scholars viewed the instructions as unusual and as a push to lead to a conviction.
