Politico reports:

Republicans are scrambling to prevent Hunter Biden’s conviction on felony gun charges from undermining their argument that the judicial system is being weaponized against Donald Trump.

They just can’t agree on how.

Trump’s campaign cast the conviction of his rival’s son on Tuesday as a “distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family,” while some hard-line supporters dismissed the proceedings as “fake.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson argued that Hunter Biden’s conviction “doesn’t” undercut Republicans’ claims of a two-tiered justice system because the evidence against him was “overwhelming.”

And still other Hill Republicans went so far as to describe the verdict as a “step towards ensuring equal application of the law.”

Republicans’ divergent responses to the verdict on Tuesday afternoon offered a real-time glimpse into the party’s struggle to reconcile what should have been a political win — the criminal conviction of the president’s son — with the guilty verdict rendered against their own standard bearer. [Continue reading…]