Former President Trump on Sunday suggested that his recent federal indictment comes as a “distraction” for allegations made by House Republicans in their probe into President Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
“It was done for political reasons, but it was also done, I guess, to cover up the kind of a massive crime that’s now being revealed by the Republicans in the House,” Trump said of the indictment on the debut episode of his “The Roger Stone Show” on 77 WABC, hosted by the former president’s longtime ally Roger Stone.
“It’s incredible when you look at what happened, when you look at the kind of money that flows into the Biden family, and to Joe Biden, by the way, and so they wanted to do a distraction,” Trump said.
House Republicans have long made investigating “the Biden family’s influence peddling and business schemes” and concerns about Hunter Biden’s laptop a priority for their lower chamber majority.
Last week, House Oversight lawmakers reportedly reviewed a document containing an unsubstantiated tip they say alleges Biden, as vice president, engaged in bribery with a foreign national.
“They’ll probably come up with a jaywalking charge on Hunter in the not too distant future, you know, a very small charge, so they can say well, ‘It’s fair.’ But there’s a very unfair situation. We’re living in a very, very corrupt country,” Trump said.
Hunter Biden is being investigated by the U.S. attorney in Delaware, in which prosecutors appear to be close to making a decision on whether to charge the president’s son with possible tax-related and gun purchase-related violations.
Trump primarily targeted the now-president’s son when he ran in 2020 over his membership on a board for a Ukrainian energy company while Joe Biden was serving as vice president during the Obama administration.
Hunter Biden has acknowledged that he had “poor judgment” in taking the role because it put his father in a position to be attacked, but he emphasized that he did not commit any wrongdoing.
Trump and his allies have called for Hunter Biden to face charges and accused the president of being involved in his son’s business affairs but have not presented evidence of that. The White House repeatedly has attacked the GOP-led investigation by House Republicans, blasting it as politically-driven and having no merits.
The former president last week was hit with a 37-count federal indictment in connection with his alleged mishandling of classified documents. He called the indictment a “disgrace” in his conversation with Stone, who he notably pardoned back in 2020. Sunda marked his first media interview appearance since the indictment was unsealed, following two speeches on Saturday in Georgia and North Carolina.