Trump's campaign was rooting for Hunter Biden to be acquitted. Now, it's changing tactics.

• Hunter Biden's conviction disrupts Donald Trump's claims of a rigged justice system favoring the Bidens.
• Now, the Trump campaign is changing its attack strategy.

Hunter Biden can now be called a convicted felon — just like former President Donald Trump.

But that throws a wrench into the Trump campaign's messaging that the justice system is rigged against him in favor of the Biden family.

Insiders within the Trump campaign had talked about how a Hunter Biden acquittal would help Trump raise millions of dollars because it would help prove his narrative that he's a victim of political persecution, The New York Times reported, citing a person with knowledge of the campaign.

Trump has been able to turn his own legal struggles into a massive fundraising bone for his campaign. In 24 hours after Trump's Manhattan verdict, his campaign claimed it raised more than $50 million in online donations. Trump was convicted of all 34 criminal counts related to a scheme to help falsify business records to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

A Politico analysis previously found that Trump's most successful fundraising days during the 2024 cycle were related to his legal woes.

But the guilty verdict against Hunter Biden has raised an uncomfortable question: If the justice system is rigged by Joe Biden against Trump, why would the system also convict the president's son?

A GOP strategist told Politico the decision had thrown "a bit of sand in the gears" of those echoing Trump's lines of attack.

Now that Hunter Biden has been convicted of three felony counts related to obtaining a gun while addicted to drugs, Trump's campaign is shifting its attack strategy.

Instead, the campaign is painting the conviction as a distraction from what it says, without any evidence, are greater crimes.

"This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine," Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's national press secretary, said in a statement.

"Crooked Joe Biden's reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit," Leavitt added.

Republicans, led by the House GOP, have tried to argue that President Biden directly benefited from an alleged influence-peddling scheme. Despite years of investigations, they have not produced direct evidence of the president's wrongdoing.

Trump himself said in a private meeting last year that Republicans shouldn't "go overboard" attacking the president's son because it could backfire against him by making the president seem like a sympathetic father, The Times reported, citing a person who was present at the meeting.

The Times noted that references to Hunter Biden had quietly been scaled back in Trump's campaign speeches.

Biden, meanwhile, vowed not to pardon his son and said he'd respect the jury's verdict.