For almost four years, Republicans have delved into the darkest corners of the world Hunter Biden‘s life, trying to link his problems to his father, President Joe Biden. But with the younger Biden on trial in Delaware on gun charges, the glaring political contradictions in the case have largely silenced the Republican Party, from former President Donald Trump until now.
It goes without saying: The baseless claim that Biden’s Justice Department is conducting a political prosecution of Trump is somewhat undermined by the department’s prosecution of the president’s son. It’s also hard to say much about the allegations that Hunter Biden lied about his drug use to buy a gun, while your party is sponsoring legislation to loosen restrictions on gun purchases for veterans struggling with mental illness , not to mention the case before the Supreme Court that could allow domestic abusers to purchase firearms.
So outside of the professional provocateurs in Washington and the right-wing media, Republicans have decided to say as little as possible.
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“I wouldn’t read too much if a lot of people aren’t talking about it right now,” warned Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., leader of the House investigation into Hunter Biden. “Many other things have emerged in the last three days. We’ll see what it looks like at the end of this week.”
Among the “other things” Armstrong referred to were the 34 crimes the party’s presumptive presidential nominee was found guilty of last week.
And while the Manhattan jury that convicted Trump of approving fraudulent corporate documents to cover up hush-money payments to a porn actor was under attack in state court, and prosecutors in the case worked for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Republicans have insisted — wrongly — that Biden’s Justice Department coordinated the entire case, making the department’s prosecution of Hunter Biden politically difficult.
When the House Judiciary Committee’s Republican majority convened a hearing Tuesday on how the “DOJ has become politicized and weaponized under Attorney General Merrick Garland,” virtually the only mentions of Hunter Biden came from Democrats like Rep. Steve Cohen. of Tennessee, who asked Garland whether his department had indicted Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas. The answer was yes.
“So you prosecuted the Democrats, and right now Hunter Biden, the president’s son, is on trial in Delaware,” Cohen said, adding for good measure that the department had declined to appoint a Republican member of the committee to sue. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, after investigating him for sex trafficking.
“Mr. Gaetz is living proof that you have not armed the Justice Department,” Cohen said. (Gaetz was not in the room at the time.)
Perhaps the only mention of the president’s son by a Republican during the lengthy hearing came from Rep. Ben Cline of Virginia, who asked whether Garland had spoken to Hunter Biden at a state dinner for the Kenyan president last month.
“I have never spoken to Hunter Biden in my life,” Garland responded.
Then there’s the charge facing Hunter Biden — lying about drug use on a federal background check to buy a gun — and the charge it faces against gun rights absolutism within the Republican Party. On Tuesday night, the House narrowly approved a measure that would remove military veterans reported to the FBI for mental health issues from the nation’s gun background check system.
“I am encouraged to see that Congress refuses to turn a blind eye to the 260,000 veterans who have been wrongfully subjected to the FBI’s corrupt system,” said Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., the amendment’s sponsor.
But that “corrupt system” is the same one Hunter Biden is accused of subverting on federal forms when he tried to buy a gun.
Gun rights groups have been embroiled in the issue, trying to reconcile their political efforts to defeat the president with their attacks on the system of instantaneous checks.
“Gun owners of America believe that the gun control violations Hunter Biden has violated are unconstitutional and that Forms 4473 should not even exist,” said Erich Pratt, the group’s senior vice president. “However, as long as these violations remain on the books, Hunter Biden does not deserve special treatment from the DOJ.”
Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said: “The NRA is a steadfast advocate for the Second Amendment right for every law-abiding American, but we draw the line at criminal behavior.”
Democrats have had no problem pointing out the contradictions.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee who has spent nearly two years investigating Hunter Biden, was almost sympathetic. The prosecutor in the case is an appointee of Trump’s Justice Department, he noted. The judge was also nominated by Trump.
“The existence of the Hunter Biden prosecution and trial negates virtually everything they have said about the Trump prosecution and trial,” he said.
And, Raskin added, “if anyone else in America were accused of lying on a federal form to obtain a gun, the entire Republican apparatus would be mobilized to charge that his Second Amendment rights were being violated .”
Armstrong said the circle may actually be square. A year ago, he noted, Hunter Biden agreed with the Justice Department to plead guilty to two felony tax charges and accept terms that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a separate weapons charge, a deal that could have allowed the case to go away without jail time. time. But the Trump-appointed judge in the case, Maryellen Noreika, objected and the plea deal collapsed.
“I am confident they would have been happier if that plea deal had been accepted; it just wasn’t,” Armstrong said. “But the DOJ wasn’t part of that. A federal judge said no.”
The Republican leaders of the Biden family investigation are not giving up. On Wednesday, the chairmen of the House Ways and Means, Oversight and Judiciary committees announced they had sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department asking that Hunter Biden and the president’s brother James be charged with lying to Congress.
Still, campaign strategists from both parties said this week that their candidates should leave the Hunter Biden case alone. Republicans said they were watching the Delaware courtroom to see if the suspect’s father emerged. Otherwise, they said, candidates should stick to the issues on which the party is winning: the economy and the border.
The Trump campaign on Tuesday called on the news media to denounce the president’s executive order closing the border to amnesty seekers. The former president released a slew of videos on topics including a promise that a Wall Street Journal reporter jailed in Russia would be released if elected and an embrace of mail-in ballots. Neither Hunter Biden nor any other member of the “Biden crime family” came up.
Democrats have also been eager to focus on the issues voters care about — and Hunter Biden is not one of them.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana was pressed at a CNBC forum on Tuesday on his claim that the Manhattan court where Trump was convicted had been a “banana republic trial.” If so, he was asked, was the unfolding Hunter Biden case also a trial against the banana republic?
“I haven’t seen any of that yet,” Johnson shrugged. “We’ll see. I hope not.”
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