Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts during a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., June 9, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump spent years attacking Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s only surviving son, and raising campaign funds with baseless claims that the Biden family was corrupt and above the law.
Even before Hunter Biden was convicted on three federal firearms offenses on Tuesday, trump card Make the 54-year-old lawyer and recovering addict the centerpiece of his naked campaign against Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election.
Three years later, Trump’s attacks on Hunter Biden have grown so serious that Biden’s lawyers Sent a cease-and-desist letter to Trump teamCalling Trump’s constant insults against Biden on social media both “defamatory” and “likely to cause harm to him or his family.”
With a history like that, it’s easy to imagine that Hunter Biden’s trial and subsequent conviction for lying on a federally required form to purchase a Colt Cobra while he was high on crack cocaine will set the stage for The Trump campaign brought in a fundraising bonanza.
but it is not the truth. By contrast, Trump does not appear to have mentioned Hunter Biden on any fundraising platform since the trial began, according to a CNBC analysis of advertising and fundraising data.
Trump’s political campaign has spent more than $200,000 since June 1 Facebook There are also Instagram ads, according to the social media giant’s advertising archives. None of these ads mention hunters Bidenname.
The latest Trump ads on Google and YouTube also make no mention of Hunter Biden. The same goes for Trump’s campaign emails and newsletters.
So what’s going on?
The answer seems to be something different.
Evan Siegfried, a former press aide to Rudy Giuliani, said: “Most Americans know someone who is struggling with or struggling with drug addiction.
“Trump and Republicans have accused Hunter Biden of being at the center of a massive corruption network involving his father, who was vice president. This case has nothing to do with those allegations,” Siegfried said.
The Trump campaign said the same thing.
“This trial merely distracts from the true crimes of the Biden crime family, which defrauded China, Russia and Ukraine,” Trump campaign spokesperson Carolyn Leavitt said in a statement after the verdict. tens of millions of dollars.
But this is more than just a distracting argument. The unprecedented conviction of a sitting president’s only living son also undermines a key argument of the Trump campaign and one that has proven to be an extremely profitable fundraising hook: that the Biden White House is taking control of the Justice Department and is corrupting it to guide the numerous criminal prosecutions Trump faces.
“This at least slows down the momentum and clear argument that the Trump campaign has been making about Biden weaponizing the justice system,” a Republican strategist told NBC News on condition of anonymity.
In fact, much of Trump’s digital fundraising has focused on his own May 30 conviction by a New York jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments to porn stars. Trump continues to deny the accusations.
Trump’s team sent a text message on June 5 that included comments from Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee. “My father-in-law did nothing wrong,” the text message read.
The text pointed to a fundraising page that said in all caps that Trump’s conviction was “a slap in the face” and told potential donors “they’re after you – he’s just in their way.”
These digital fundraisers have given Trump a boost.
The Trump campaign announced on May 31 that it had raised more than $50 million in the 24 hours following the former president’s conviction.
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