Both Hunter Biden and Donald Trump face political prosecution

Hunter Biden and Donald Trump now have something in common: both are being dragged before the courts, potentially even facing jail time, for political reasons.

Biden would not have been indicted on three ‘gun charges’, which boil down to his allegedly lying on a government form and wrongly having a gun for 11 days in 2018, were it not for his position as the president’s son, and a desire among Republicans, and some Democrats, to see the younger Biden punished.

For Republicans, typically in favour of gun ownership rights, by the way, Hunter Biden is a sacrificial lamb, a convenient way to smear the older Biden by association, as the 80-year-old president gears up for his re-election campaign.

For Democrats the gun charges are a useful way of distracting attention from the far more serious, and worthy of prosecutors’ time, accusations of corruption surrounding the entire Biden family.

The charges also keep the focus on Hunter’s drug use, which elicits sympathy from some voters, rather than his role as an influence peddler, or even a de facto agent of foreign powers given his numerous, deep and at least highly unethical, relationships with Ukrainian and Chinese businesses while his father was Vice President.

The prosecutor, David Weiss, who began investigating Hunter in 2019, had years to bring gun charges against Hunter, but did so only this week after his recent elevation to special prosecutor, and after relentless demands from Republicans, who could well be his boss and running the Justice department by 2025, to get tough.

Indeed, the four-page indictment released on Thursday (Friday AEST) is a risible outcome for an almost four-year investigation, if it ends up being the total of charges brought.

Many millions of Americans own guns, and many millions regularly consume illegal drugs, suggesting violations of the relevant federal provisions surrounding firearm purchase and use are rampant, and rarely pursued.

Only five per cent of all prosecutions for wrongful firearm possession in 2021 were related to drug use, according to US Sentencing Commission data.

The younger Biden’s lawyers will argue - amusingly given the party’s position on guns - that the three charges aren’t legal given the US constitution’s famous right to bear arms wasn’t qualified by use of crack cocaine, or any other drug.

In the sweetheart plea deal between Weiss and Hunter that famously fell apart six weeks ago, Weiss only brought one, not three, gun charges, even though no new evidence has emerged since, further evidence the whole effort is politically based.

Imagine still believing after the last few months, following the legal tribulations of Donald Trump and now Hunter Biden, that the law is applied equally to everyone!

The drug use and sexual escapades of the president’s son from years ago might be titillating, but they are a distraction for those who would prefer prosecutors’ scarce resources be used instead to investigate matters of actual public importance, namely systematic corruption over years.

Hunter’s gun was never loaded and held it for only 11 days, hardly a major threat to public safety.

All this is too bad for Hunter, though, who faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of the three gun charges.

Democrats must quietly worry that the president’s son will become sick and tired of enduring humiliation after humiliation in relation to his private life, and now the prospect of prison, while the rest of his family lives in style in large part because of his business efforts.

If Republican suspicions that President Biden is or was corrupt are correct, the younger Biden would be the best source of corroborating intelligence.