Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina vowed Tuesday that he will clean house at the Department of Justice and FBI if elected president, saying it is needed to restore confidence in the justice system.
Asked at a Fox News town-hall meeting hosted by Sean Hannity about Hunter Biden’s plea deal earlier in the day, Mr. Scott said every American has to be treated equally under the law and said congressional investigators must be given room to complete their probe into accusations of wrongdoing leveled at President Biden and his son.
“If they can’t finish their investigation, President Tim Scott will finish it,” Mr. Scott said. “We are going to fire Joe Biden and then we are going to fire [Attorney General] Merrick Garland and fire [FBI Director] Christoper Wray and we are going to restore confidence and integrity in our Department of Justice.”
The remarks came after the news broke that Hunter Biden has agreed to a plea deal with the Justice Department on two misdemeanor tax charges and also agree to terms that allowed him to sidestep prosecution on a separate gun charge.
The deal was brokered with a federal prosecutor appointed by former President Donald Trump.
The news dominated Mr. Hannity’s opening monologue where he accused the Justice Department of treating former President Donald Trump and Mr. Biden’s troubled son to different standards.
Mr. Trump recently became the first president charged with federal crimes over his handling of classified documents.
Mr. Hannity and Fox News have rallied to his side, while Mr. Trump’s rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential race have responded in various ways as they wait to see how things pan out.
Mr. Scott said the “Big Guy,” using a term that Hunter Biden’s associates used for his father, “has some explaining to do” and questioned the Justice Department’s actions.
“You cannot have them going after the pro-life activists with a SWAT team; you can’t call parents who show up at a school board meeting domestic terrorists; and you cannot, it is unacceptable and un-American to weaponize the Department of Justice against your political opponents,” Mr. Scott said, referring to a litany of conservative complaints about DOJ actions.
“It is just wrong,” Mr. Scott told the town-hall audience in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Before that, Mr. Scott seized the appearance on Fox to share parts of his stump speech, telling the audience the United States is the “freeist, fairest land on God’s green earth, and we will never apologize for being Americans.”
Mr. Scott, the sole Black Republican in the Senate, jumped into the race a month ago and has been busily introducing himself to GOP primary voters — many of whom are unfamiliar with his political career.
He is running on a deliberately optimistic message, telling audiences that his story — that of a Black man raised in poverty by a single mother in South Carolina — is proof the United States is a place where people can rise above their circumstances if they are dedicated to individual responsibility and conservative values.
“If you work hard, you have integrity and you have grit, all things are possible in today’s America. And the left weaponizes … race whenever they are losing an argument,” Mr. Scott said Tuesday. “That does my grandfather an injustice.”
“The pain and the progress of this nation should be viewed as a symbol … of what is possible,” he said. “The left, they refuse to deal with America in 2023 and not 1923 because they know that the truth of my life disproves the lies of their radical agenda.”
Mr. Scott barely registers in the polls, but has plenty of time to make inroads against Mr. Trump, who holds a big double-digit lead over the field, and his closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
Mr. Scott was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2013 by then-Gov. Nikki Haley, now one of his presidential-primary rivals, following the resignation of Sen. Jim DeMint.
He went on to win a special election to fill out the remainder of Mr. DeMint’s term and was re-elected to full six-year terms in 2016 and again in 2022.
Before that, he served in the U.S. House, in the South Carolina legislature, and on the Charleston County Council.
Christale Spain, South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman, said prior to the event that Mr. Scott has “used his campaign to push forward a dangerous, extreme agenda in the 2024 race for the MAGA base, so it’s no surprise his first nationally televised town hall as a presidential candidate is on the friendly confines of FOX News.”
“South Carolinians are already all too familiar with Scott’s record — voting with Donald Trump nearly 100% of the time, serving as the ‘architect’ of Trump’s tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, and advocating for a national abortion ban,” Ms. Spain said. “No matter how many lies he tries to spin tonight during tonight’s town hall, he cannot erase that extreme history.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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