The president’s son’s admission of guilt will save him a long trial, but that won’t stop Republicans from weeping – wrongly – over injustice.
Joe Biden could well do without the antics of his 53-year-old son, who has an annoying habit of getting involved in shady deals.
On Tuesday, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to a number of minor misdemeanors, for which he will serve a suspended sentence in exchange for dropping more serious charges for which the evidence was weaker.
The plea ends years of investigations that have failed to implicate the Bidens in crimes but have fueled the right-wing conspirators’ rumor mill into overdrive.
The Hunter Biden Saga
This rather typical pleading in cases of this kind nonetheless triggers a flood of criticism from Republicans, who accuse the judiciary of favoring the President and his son while Donald Trump is the victim of a (armed) system instrumented by Biden.
There has been much talk about Hunter Biden’s shady dealings, which the right ties to a huge corruption plot involving his father. But despite years of investigations by prosecutors hired by the Trump administration, there is no hard evidence to support these rumors.
Two weights, two measures?
Is the system really biased in favor of the Bidens and against Trump? Republicans keep insisting, but the facts belie it.
By assuming the presidency, Biden could have dropped the investigation into his son or replaced prosecutors appointed by Trump. He didn’t. He also did not intervene in the investigation into the classified information found in his home.
Meanwhile, on the left, dissatisfaction is growing over the extreme deference shown to Donald Trump in the Mar A Lago documents affair and the exasperating slowness of investigations into the events of January 6, 2021.
During Trump’s impeachment trial, he was granted privileges not normally afforded to an accused. Additionally, his trial will take place before a Trump-appointed judge, who declined to resign despite apparent signs of bias.
In the Jan. 6 case, recent revelations show the Justice Department hesitated when Trump and his entourage may have been involved from the start.
Cultivate cynicism
The Trump method is well known: he hammers out accusations without evidence against his opponents in order to get people to forget or downplay his own wrongdoings despite the abundance of evidence.
That’s why he called on the Ukrainian president to launch an investigation into Biden. To maintain doubt and cynicism, he urged Justice Department officials to “just say the 2020 election was corrupt and let me take care of the rest.”
Trumpist propaganda fuels doubts about the impartiality of the justice system and leads the public to believe that Trump is innocent, not because he didn’t do what he’s accused of, but because everyone else is doing it and letting the others get away with it.
If this kind of cynicism gets the upper hand, there is a risk that democracy will slowly die out.
