Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“Hunter Biden was convicted Tuesday of all three felony charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018 when, prosecutors argued, the president’s son lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs… President Joe Biden said in a statement issued shortly after the verdict that he would accept the outcome and ‘continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.’” AP News
Here’s our previous coverage of the trial. The Flip Side
The left accepts the verdict, and argues that it shows the Biden administration respects the rule of law.
“Mr. Biden could have spared his family and the country the spectacle of his trial by long ago pleading guilty, accepting full responsibility and asking for the court’s mercy at sentencing. Instead, he and his lawyers tried to make an unusual plea agreement that sought wider immunity for Mr. Biden from criminal liability; it fell apart last year under legitimate scrutiny from the federal judge in the case…
“In a state where his family is political royalty, Mr. Biden clearly hoped for jury nullification or a couple of holdouts moved by his struggles with addiction. Fortunately, the jury did its duty.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
“[Republicans have argued] that Joe Biden is personally ‘weaponizing’ the justice system to target Trump. House Republicans devoted a hearing last week to pressing their unsubstantiated claim that Biden had orchestrated Alvin Bragg’s moves, as ‘evidenced’ by Bragg’s hiring of an attorney with DOJ experience, a move they seem to believe is unusual…
“To hold this theory together… you have to believe Biden is directing the activities of local prosecutors while exerting no control at all over the Justice Department of the branch of government he presides over… ‘Where’s Hunter?’ they taunted for months. Well, here he is, being held to the strictest legal standard by his father’s supposedly rigged Justice Department.”
Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
“Sure, the system is far from perfect. Rich and powerful people get off all the time; poor people more often don’t. And yet the past two weeks have provided an object lesson in the fair administration of justice…
“If the Hunter Biden prosecutions illustrate anything, it is that his father’s administration respects equal justice and the rule of law, so much so that the president stood down even as his own flesh and blood was facing a potential prison term. Can you imagine, for even a fraction of a second, Donald Trump allowing the Justice Department — his Justice Department — to prosecute any of his children? Or that he wouldn’t pre-emptively pardon them, just to be doubly safe? Of course you can’t, and that is as important a difference as exists between the two candidates.”
Jesse Wegman, New York Times
“Hunter wasn't given a security clearance and assigned policy portfolios about which had no meaningful expertise or insight, like former President Donald Trump did with his daughter Ivanka and her husband, the real estate vulture Jared Kushner. Kushner's private equity firm recently nabbed a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia, which looks a bit like quid pro quo for Kushner's pro-Saudi role in the White House…
“Maybe there should be laws preventing the family members of presidents and members of Congress from taking obscenely lucrative positions sitting idly on the boards of foreign energy companies. But there aren't, and it's not clear how restrictions on individuals whose mere proximity to power tempts them into shadiness could possibly be constitutional. A better idea would be to tighten ethics rules and investment restrictions, to claw back some unaccountable powers from U.S. presidents and to require that all elected officials fully divest from business interests.”
David Faris, Newsweek
The right applauds the verdict, but is disappointed that Hunter was not charged with more serious offenses.
The right applauds the verdict, but is disappointed that Hunter was not charged with more serious offenses.
“The jury took three hours to find President Biden’s son guilty of lying about his drug use when he bought a firearm in 2018, and then illegally owning that weapon. The evidence is clear and compelling, and the defense was reduced to claiming that Hunter didn’t believe he was a drug addict when he signed the form…
“The guilty verdict is likely to minimize any political impact. An acquittal by a Biden hometown jury would have fed Donald Trump’s narrative of unequal justice—especially since the Justice Department first tried to let Hunter off with a slap-on-the-wrist plea deal. Only after a political uproar and the testimony of IRS whistleblowers did Attorney General Merrick Garland make U.S. Attorney David Weiss a special counsel in the Hunter case…
“President Biden has said he won’t pardon his son, though count us skeptical if Hunter is sentenced to prison time. As sad as Hunter’s descent into addiction was, he is now being forced to face the consequences of his actions.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Biden defenders argue that Trump advocates are wrong when they point to the Trump trial in Manhattan as evidence of Democratic lawfare against Trump. If lawfare is real, they say, then why did a DOJ run by Democrats prosecute and convict the Democratic president’s son? Republicans would give three answers…
“First… The Biden DOJ tried and failed to sweep it all under the rug… The Department of Justice tried to sneak through a sweetheart deal that would have given Biden immunity on the gun charges and who knows what else. The only thing that stopped it was the skepticism of federal Judge Maryellen Noreika…
“Second, they would point to the sheer novelty, the unprecedented nature, of the charges against Trump as evidence that he received special treatment of a very negative sort… And third, Trump supporters would note that the former president is the de facto presidential nominee of the Republican Party. The Democratic effort to imprison President Joe Biden’s opposition, they would say, is so consequential that it stands alone in any discussion about the integrity of the justice system.”
Byron York, Washington Examiner
“While President Biden may not have directly ordered his DOJ to ‘get rid of this case,’ the DOJ slow-walked its investigation into Hunter, allowing the statute of limitations to expire on his alleged tax evasion between 2014 and 2015, as IRS whistleblowers have alleged. During that time frame, Hunter was being paid as much as $83,000 per month to sit on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, where his primary contribution appeared to be the Biden ‘brand’ and access to his father…
“If the ‘rule of law’ actually mattered… there would be outrage that Biden’s Department of Justice ‘disregarded the victims who were sexually exploited by Hunter Biden’ after Hunter allegedly paid prostitutes ‘and used such payments as tax expenses for one of his companies,’ as summarized by the House Oversight Committee. Or perhaps they would be furious that Hunter never registered as a foreign agent despite admitting to the committee that he was being paid by Chinese Communist Party-linked businesses.”
Brianna Lyman, The Federalist
