President Donald Trump stopped by "Hannity" on Wednesday to gripe about former President Joe Biden's decision to pardon many of his family members and enemies of Trump during his final days in office. Trump took care to notice that there's one prominent name that wasn't on Biden's last-minute list: Joseph Robinette Biden himself.
"This guy went around giving everybody pardons," said Trump, fresh off of issuing a mass pardon for 1,500 accused January 6 rioters. "The funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn't give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him."
In the closing weeks of his presidency, Biden loosed his pardoning pen. He began his spree signings by issuing a pardon to protect his son, Hunter. The former president's oldest living son had been a target of prosecution for years. In a statement about his decision to pardon Hunter, Joe Biden said he felt that his son was being unfairly prosecuted by right-wing forces.
"From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted," Biden wrote. "Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form... It is clear that Hunter was treated differently."
Just before leaving office, Biden issued pardons to many members of his family, as well as Trump targets like Liz Cheney and Gen. Mark Milley.
"I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said in a statement. “Even when individuals have done nothing wrong — and in fact have done the right thing — and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.”
Biden did not pardon himself — and it's unclear if he could be prosecuted at all under the Supreme Court's recently created doctrine of presidential immunity — but Trump associates are still speaking of the "Biden crime family" in statements to the press.
"To us, it probably proves the point. The suspicion that, you know, they call it the Biden crime family," House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday. "If they weren’t the crime family, why do they need pardons? Right?"
On the right-wing news channel Real America's Voice, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Biden was "guilty of some of the worst crimes of any president... in our nation's history," adding that Biden's family members "do belong in prison."
Watch Trump's interview with Hannity below:
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