In a federal courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware, the oldest living scion of the small state’s most famous family is having some of his lowest moments presented before a jury. Hunter Biden’s nightmare should be a dream come true for the supporters of former President Donald Trump. After all, this is President Joe Biden’s son facing down a federal criminal charge. But the fact that it’s happening at all directly refutes one of Trump’s biggest lies.
Trump himself was convicted last week in a New York state court of 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents in the first degree. Throughout the process he’s attacked the criminal justice system as being rigged against him, falsely claiming that Biden and the Department of Justice had somehow colluded with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to persecute him. He’s been backed up in these ramblings not with evidence but with the fervent agreement from his fellow Republicans.
What then to make of the fact that attorneys in President Biden’s DOJ began presenting their case against their boss’s son on Tuesday?
What then to make of the fact that attorneys in President Biden’s DOJ began presenting their case against their boss’s son on Tuesday? Even Trey Gowdy, a former GOP congressman and prosecutor, has admitted that the charges that Hunter Biden faces are rarely brought against anyone, let alone a president’s son. It presents Trumpists with a circle that refuses to be squared with any sort of logic — but Republicans and conservative media commenters have spurned that sort of thinking as of late. Instead, the response to the inconvenient fact of Hunter Biden’s ongoing trial has been all over the map. It’s been used to draw dark, unfounded conclusions, highlight the most embarrassing portions of the case against him or been set to the side entirely to lament Trump’s unfair treatment.
A trip through the conservative media is particularly dizzying, with wild attempts to make the trial of a man who has never held and never will hold government office somehow of equal importance to that of a former president of the United States. On Monday night, Fox News’ Sean Hannity predicted to his audience that the president might change his tune on the importance of the rule of law now that his son is on trial. (In reality, the lead federal prosecutor in the trial echoed Biden’s comments on Trump’s conviction in his opening statement on Tuesday: “No one is above the law. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what your name is.”)
Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro likewise criticized the trial for taking place in Delaware, a much friendlier venue than Manhattan was for Trump, even though Pirro, a former judge and district attorney, knows that trials take place where the alleged crime took place. One Fox News guest even suggested that first lady Jill Biden's showing up to support her son as the trial began was “a message from the White House” meant to intimidate potential jury members.
Republicans have also been unable to provide a good answer as to why Hunter Biden is being prosecuted at all if the supposedly “weaponized” DOJ is only interested in targeting conservatives. One version has it that the House GOP’s investigations into his father uncovered damaging evidence of alleged Biden administration interference that scrambled a plum plea deal offered to the son. Another narrative hints that the charges are a slap on the wrist meant to act as a smokescreen against supposed more serious crimes involving his father.
Republicans have also been unable to provide a good answer as to why Hunter Biden is being prosecuted at all if the supposedly “weaponized” DOJ is only interested in targeting conservatives.
In reality, House Republican’s fishing expeditions have come up empty, leaving them with nothing that could substantiate impeachment charges against the president. The primary figure they relied on to build the narrative that Hunter and Joe Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine was charged with lying to the FBI and revealed to have connections to Russian intelligence. And nothing that Hunter Biden told them in a much-vaunted deposition provided them with any ammunition against his father.
Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that Hunter Biden’s lawyer did try to play the same card as Trump, alleging that his client was only charged because of selective prosecution. Judge Maryellen Noreika, who also shot down the DOJ’s offered plea deal last year, quickly rejected the motion to dismiss the case, writing that the “defendant’s claim is effectively that his own father targeted him for being his son, a claim that is nonsensical under the facts here.”
The one thing that the GOP has managed to agree upon when it comes to this trial is that it’s good since it’s at least embarrassing, if not necessarily politically damaging, to President Biden. For his part, Biden has done the same thing he always has when it comes to Hunter: kept him close, no matter how public his son’s mistakes have been. But the White House has also repeatedly said that there’s no chance of Biden issuing a pardon for his son should the jury find him guilty, further setting himself apart from Trump.
None of this is to say with any certainty that Hunter Biden is innocent or that his behavior over the years is excusable. But the very existence of his trial upsets the GOP’s narrative that Trump is being persecuted. If anything, these trials make me think that maybe we should be a little harsher toward people from famous families like Trump and Biden. It seems like it would help balance out the advantages they possess that so many people caught up in the criminal justice system lack. Think of it as equity under the law.
