After more than half a century of political activism, no topic can be more painful personally or politically for President Biden than his struggling son, Hunter. In every way, he is an open wound in his heart and the most sensitive weak point in his campaign armor.
One side, Hunter Biden agrees to plead guilty on Tuesday up to two tax misdemeanors ended a five-year investigation with no charges of wrongdoing by the president or perhaps a prison sentence for his youngest son. But on the other hand, it once again placed Hunter in the sights of Mr Biden’s opponents, who immediately complained that the unruly son had gone too easily.
The story of the 53-year-old president’s descendants, who Struggling with crack cocaine addiction became a fixture of political rights, which regarded him, or at least regarded him, as a walking example, talking about the pay-to-play culture of the Washington swamps, who deported benefit from his name. The phrase “Hunter Biden’s laptop” took on overall meaning to the president’s opponents even if they couldn’t describe what was actually found on the computer that showed up at a store. repaired in 2020.
The timing of Mr. Biden’s plea agreement was younger, coming only a week later indictment of former President Donald J. Trump about 37 felonies that endanger national security and obstruct justice, always drawing comparisons between two very different cases. The president’s allies point to the plea agreement as evidence that Mr. Biden played straight by letting a Trump-appointed prosecutor first decide how to handle his son’s misconduct. while the former president and his supporters see it as proof of selective justice.
“The corrupt Biden Department of Justice just removed hundreds of years of criminal responsibility by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket’,” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “Slap on the wrist” has become an official phrase repeated by Republicans such as Congressmen James R. Comer of Kentucky and Elise Stefanik of New York.
David Brock, a Democrat special agent, said the outcome of the prosecution disproves many of the charges against the president and his son since the Trump administration. Mr Brock said: “Hunter will not be charged with any of the baseless and outrageous issues that the Republican Party and the right-wing media have used to smear him over the years.
It is an argument Mr Biden will soon be out of and he has been silent for hours after news of his son’s plea deal broke, allowing a White House spokesman to say only that he and the first lady “love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life.
The president understands that the deal with prosecutors won’t be the end of the matter as House Republicans actively conduct their own investigations and publicize more sensationalist allegations. , even without confirmation, has become the main topic of conservative media.
Troubled relatives have been a perennial headache for the White House under several presidents. In modern times, intense media attention has focused on Donald Nixon’s financial dealings with Howard Hughes, Billy Carter’s work as an agent for Libya, Neil’s service Bush on the failed savings and loan board, Roger Clinton’s drug record and of course. various financial and security clearance issues involving Mr. Trump’s children and son-in-law.
For the most part, presidents seek to stay out of their loved ones’ troubles, even though Bill Clinton did. forgive my half brother right before leaving office. To what extent any of those issues hurt presidents politically is debatable, but domestically they are often a source of suffering – or frustration with people. for causing problems or guilt by targeting family members’ backs, or both.
Hunter Biden has in some ways become a more extreme example of this phenomenon in an age where any restraints on the presidential family that might have existed in the past are gone. His work in Ukraine helped lead to Mr Trump’s first impeachment, his laptop led to allegations that Twitter covered up him and his business dealings prompted extensive congressional investigations.
Republicans have convinced many Americans that the president’s son has done something shady. ONE Harris Poll conducted last month for Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies found that 63% of Americans thought Hunter Biden was involved in “peddling influence” and 53% said his father was somehow involved when he was vice president.
Even the president’s Democratic allies have privately said that there are legitimate questions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China that seem to trade his name even if they press the button. emphasized that there was no concrete evidence that his father abused his power in office. .
None of those charges were raised in Tuesday’s settlement, brokered by David Weiss, the first U.S. attorney appointed by Mr Trump’s attorney general to investigate and appointed by the US Department of Justice. Mr. Biden kept records of the case. But questions about the younger Biden’s behavior will persist.
For the president, however, it’s much more personal. His relationship with his son was forged in the 1972 car crash that killed Mr Biden’s first wife and infant daughter, and injured Hunter and his brother, Beau. love.
While Beau grew up to be a successful politician who his father imagined would one day become president, Hunter struggled with alcohol, drugs, and personal problems. After Beau died of brain cancer in 2015A distraught Hunter got into repeated fights with crack cocaine that eventually destroyed his marriage.
As he wrote in “Beautiful thingsIn his 2021 memoir, the young Biden would indulge in weeklong binge drinking, smoke as often as every 15 minutes, and engage in erratic and even reckless behaviour, including inviting a street dealer to live with her and having an affair with Beau’s Widow, Hallie Biden. He describes life as “buying crack in the middle of the night behind a gas station in Nashville, Tenn., or craving small bottles of wine in your hotel mini-bar while sitting in the palace in Amman with the king of Jordan .”
At a point when he had been missing for nearly a month, he opened the door to find his father, then vice president, being watched by Secret Service agents. “I need help,” his father said. As Hunter Biden wrote, “He won’t leave until I agree to do something.” In another, the elderly Biden was involved in a family intervention, ambushing Hunter to push him into treatment. When an angry Hunter stormed out, his father chased him down the street and grabbed him and cried.
The president has refrained from conservative attacks on his son, according to people close to him, not wanting to criticize Hunter even for his behavior that is politically damaging to his father. Whenever answering questions in public, the president has vigorously defended Hunter, most memorably during the 2020 debate when Trump attacked the younger Biden.
“My son, like so many people, like so many people we know at home, has a drug problem,” he said later, his voice full of anger at Trump’s attacks. “He got over it. He fixed it. He worked on it. And I’m proud of it. I’m proud of my son.”
Hunter Biden has remarried, paid the tax debt that led to Tuesday’s charges, and says he has changed his life. He only made occasional appearances at the White House, knowing that whenever he did, it would become a problem. He approached Kevin McCarthy, soon-to-be Republican speaker, at a state dinner at the White House in December and praised his mother. He went with his father to Ireland in April.
But regardless of whether he goes there in person, Hunter Biden will continue to be present during his father’s presidency, welcome or not, especially as next year’s election approaches.
