The Hunter Biden trial may be over, but the political spin war over it is nowhere near over.
On Tuesday, the president’s son was indicted on three charges related to his 2018 gun purchase. At the time of purchase, Hunter filled out a form stating that he was not an illegal drug user, but that his addiction struggles at the time were well-documented.
So prosecutors charged him with violating three different laws — two false statement laws, and a law prohibiting the possession of a firearm by a drug user — and a Delaware jury agreed. A prison sentence is possible for Hunter, but it was a non-violent crime and is generally considered unlikely given his first felony conviction.
As I wrote recently, the story behind this trial is messy: It’s a year-long, sprawling federal investigation beset by allegations of political bias on both sides. But the trial itself was fairly straightforward.
Some judges told CNN That they questioned the seriousness of the case — after all, no one was hurt by the gun, and Hunter has apparently been clean since 2019 — but they felt the evidence was clear that Hunter broke the law.
So what does this tell us about the rule of law and politics under President Joe Biden’s administration? Let’s assess three common claims that commentators have made since the judgment was dropped.
1) Democratic Acceptance: This proves Joe Biden respects the rule of law. There are many Democrats argued The result prompted Republicans to claim that Biden corrupted the justice system to impeach Donald Trump. After all, if the president’s son is convicted, he’s clearly not putting his thumb on the scale.
This seems to be largely correct. When Biden took office, he replaced U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee, to oversee the investigation. His attorney general, Merrick Garland, promised that Weiss would be free to conduct the investigation.
And that happened. Despite disagreements among investigators about how aggressively to pursue the case, there has been no indication that Biden or Garland themselves obstructed Weiss in any way. They have a free hand to him.
2) MAGA REPUBLICAN TAKE: Prosecutors come up with a weak case to cover up real crimes. Trump allies have been obsessed with Hunter Biden for years, claiming (without evidence) that his businesses and foreign lobbying activities were linked to some of the larger Biden family corruption schemes.
With that expectation, the final charges against Hunter were unexpected — a gun case in Delaware, and a tax case in California scheduled for trial in September. So, disappointed that such a scheme has not been charged, some Republicans now claim That Weiss must be in on the cover-up.
Of course, the idea that indicting and pleading guilty to the president’s son is a plan to aid the president is preposterous on its face — conspiratorial nonsense. It is far more likely that Weiss simply found no basis for the corruption charges.
3) Another takeaway: This conviction only happened because prosecutors were embarrassed — or pressured — into doing it. Complicating any simplistic narrative of the DOJ being above politics is that prosecutors’ behavior in this case has changed abruptly in the past year.
Although Weiss’ team conducts extensive investigations into Hunter’s business affairs, in late 2022 Weiss The said conclusion was That the case was not strong enough to prove the allegations. So he hoped to strike a plea deal with Hunter’s team.
But in May 2023, two IRS officials involved in the investigation went to Congress as whistleblowers, arguing that prosecutors were being too cautious and risk-averse — that they were being soft on the president’s son. Criticism from Republicans erupted.
A plea deal was put together the following month anyway. But when it went before Judge Marilyn Noreka, she refused to accept it, asking both sides to clarify it because Hunter’s team and prosecutors weren’t on the same page about what it involved.
After that, prosecutors apparently took the deal’s initial commitment to sweep Hunter’s immunity off the table, and Hunter refused to accept a restitution agreement that lacked that provision. So prosecutors charged him in Delaware and California.
It seems realistic that Hunter would have gotten the plea deal he wanted if not for criticism from whistleblowers, Judge Noreka and the GOP.
But this can be interpreted in two ways. One could argue that prosecutors wanted to give Hunter Biden a lenient “sweetheart deal” until whistleblowers and a judge called them. Or one could argue that prosecutors were late excessively Hunter has been tough on whistleblowers and political critics of Republicans.
We have yet to hear an explanation from Weiss and his team as to why they changed course — why he belatedly decided that the earlier plea agreement was insufficient. But here is the key to understanding what actually happened and what role politics played.
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