It is hypocrisy all around as some seek ‘justice’ for Trump and Hunter

Hunter Biden alongside his father Joe in Washington. (Photo: Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images.)

The US justice system is the gift that keeps on giving. One minute a presidential candidate and former POTUS is standing tall before a judge, the next the son of a sitting POTUS is staring down the barrel of a criminal conviction, unleashing the floodgates of a swollen river of whataboutery, tit-for-tattery and teeth-clenched hypocrisy.

In his opening statement, Delaware prosecutor Derek Hines said: “No one is above the law” and “the law makes no distinction for Hunter Biden”. The statements were remarkably similar to those made by New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg last week.

As late as last week, following Donald Trump’s conviction in the state of New York, the MAGA faithful had taken to paranoid babbling claiming, “If they can get a president, they can get anyone.”

That is precisely the point of a criminal justice system. Justice is blind to privilege, wealth and power. It generally isn’t, of course, but it’s supposed to be.

The term lawfare has been bandied about, too. The MAGA set complained of a politicised judiciary setting its sights on the 45th US president and presumptive Republican nominee for the presidential election in November while urging the prosecution of Hunter for firearms offences when he was in the grip of addiction to cocaine and methamphetamine in front of a judge appointed by the 45th president.

For what it’s worth, Hunter’s defence will argue he had been in rehab and had put drug use behind him when he completed the firearm licence application. Amusingly, Hunter has thrown Delaware prosecutors a gift in the form of his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, in which he indicates he remained a slave to illicit substances at that particular time. One man’s personal journey is another’s bare-chested soul-exposed confession.

Two of the three counts Hunter faces in Delaware relate to federal legislation that required him to truthfully complete forms, indicating he was not using illegal drugs when he bought a Colt Cobra .38 calibre revolver at a gun store in October 2018. The third count alleges he possessed a firearm while using a narcotic. Two of the charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years; the third carries a maximum sentence of five years.

Hunter has an obsession with confession. His laptop, carelessly left in a computer store and oddly never retrieved, revealed videos of the President’s son handling crack cocaine, weighing crack cocaine and smoking crack cocaine. He did so flagrantly, frequently in the company of sex workers, often wearing fewer clothes than his pay-per-play friends.

Hunter won’t be the first relative of a sitting president to cause embarrassment and political fallout but Joe Biden’s sole surviving son makes Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy, who branded his own beer label and took a backhander from Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, look like a rank amateur in the scandal stakes. George HW Bush’s family had a walk-in robe replete with skeletons. One of them managed to emerge and became a two-term president.

Hunter was indicted by a federal grand jury in September after a diversion agreement for the felony gun offence and a plea deal related to misdemeanour tax charges unravelled. Delaware US District Court judge Maryellen Noreika questioned whether the agreement would enable him to avoid potential future charges.

The sweetheart deal that would have allowed Hunter to not only walk away but also avoid further charges, with a relative slap on the wrist for tax evasion and the firearms charge, fell over. He quickly turned from his head-bowed mea culpa guilty plea on the tax evasion rap to a plea of not guilty on all three counts, and here we are.

Meanwhile, The New York Times is reporting on Hunter’s trial po-faced. When the contents of Hunter’s laptop featured his own pornographic conduct, emails showing a certain willingness to use his father’s name to enrich himself also emerged. Yet The New York Times decided not to pursue the allegations that Joe had been in cahoots with his son, slap-bang in the heat of the 2020 presidential campaign. It was an editorial decision that smacked, if not of active bias, then certainly of a level of incuriousness not befitting a masthead that claims to be America’s most prestigious.

While a jury of Hunter’s peers has yet to determine his guilt or innocence, the early signs are that Trump’s convictions will work against him. In an Axios poll cobbled together the day after Trump was convicted, 49 per cent of independent voters were said to believe the presumptive GOP nominee should resign his candidacy. In a snap poll, YouGov reported that half of those polled agreed with a Manhattan jury’s verdict that Trump was guilty of 34 felony charges related to falsifying business records to cover up an alleged affair with an adult film actor. Another 30 per cent disagreed, while 19 per cent of Americans fell into the “don’t know” category. At this early stage, independents are almost twice as likely to think Trump is guilty as to think he’s not.

As with all polling, it depends on the questions asked. The 49 per cent of independent voters in the Axios poll were not asked if they would still vote for Trump or if they would bother to turn up and vote at all in November.

Trump supporters were decrying a rigged judicial system last week. A week later it is the Democrats’ turn to claim the fix is in. It’s rare to find cant so neatly bookended in such a short time.

Where is the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby in general on this? Alas, they have fallen into taciturn politicised comment, if not awkward silence. Where are the shrill cries that Hunter be allowed to open carry like the constitutional forefathers intended? NRA spokesman Billy McLaughlin would say only, “Laws should be applied equally against all criminals.” One down, one to come.