Hunter Biden verdict: how will it affect the US election?

The spectacle of a president’s son squirming in the dock has been excruciating for the Biden family, but is unlikely to cause political pain.

Hunter Biden with his son Beau and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden at Delaware Air National Guard Base. Picture: AFP.

The unprecedented spectacle of a president’s son squirming in the dock while prosecutors and his former lovers raked over the details of his sordid lifestyle has been excruciating for the Biden family, but is unlikely to cause political pain.

This election campaign is overwhelmingly about the impact of inflation, concerns over immigration and the loss of abortion rights, as well as the character of another convicted felon, Donald Trump, and the stamina – or lack of it – of President Joe Biden.

The sad Hunter Biden show is unlikely to shift the needle with voters. If anything, it may help the President’s standing, after he ruled out a pardon for his son under the presidential powers of clemency and refused to join Hunter’s lawyer in condemning the proceedings as politically motivated. The President’s reserve stands in contrast with Trump’s incessant attacks on the judicial system and loud complaints that his prosecutions amount to “lawfare” and an attempt at interference in the election.

Trump’s allegations that the Department of Justice was behind the New York state hush-money prosecution – which it was not – and is irredeemably biased are refuted by the even-handedness shown in the federal prosecution of Democrats, including Robert Menendez, a senator from New Jersey who is on trial for corruption, and Henry Cuellar, a congressman from Texas set to stand trial next year for money laundering.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department decided not to indict one of the most pro-Trump Republican congressmen, Matt Gaetz of Florida, after investigating him for sex trafficking; hardly the action of a department hellbent on political vendetta.

The relative quiet from the Republican side on the Hunter Biden prosecution also reflects that it is actively campaigning to allow greater access to gun ownership, not punish those who want to buy a firearm. The Gun Owners of America group said it “believes that the gun control Hunter Biden violated is unconstitutional and [the form he lied on] shouldn’t even exist”.

An Emerson survey found that 64 per cent of voters said the trial would have no impact on their decision, with 24 per cent saying it made them less likely to support Joe Biden and 12 per cent more likely.

The greater risk to Biden’s re-election comes from his son’s second trial, on tax evasion charges, in California in September. Starting just two months before polling day on November 5, and a matter of weeks before postal voting begins, this case will remind voters of Hunter’s highly lucrative role on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Republicans will publicise the evidence of Hunter’s “extravagant lifestyle” while failing to pay $US1.4m over four years as part of their campaign against the “Biden crime family”.

No evidence has been produced proving that Joe Biden acted corruptly, but in the heat of the election campaign that will not matter.

The Times