Damaged trust
“If you are the president’s leading political opponent,” Kevin McCarthy said recently, “the [Justice Department] tries to literally put you in jail and give you prison time. If you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal.”
McCarthy encapsulated an argument made by many Republicans in the wake of the plea deal offered to Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges to satisfy what prosecutors called a “willful failure” to pay some $300,000 in income tax (a debt he since has settled, including penalties), and agreed to a pretrial diversion agreement that meant in essence that he admitted to a federal gun possession charge but did not have to formally plead guilty.
Given the Justice Department’s 37-count indictment accusing Donald Trump of mishandling classified documents, and the clear evidence that Biden was cashing in his last name, and the presumptive access it represented, to get paid by foreign business interests, many Republicans have been howling with rage over what they McCarthy called a “two-tier system in America.”
One thing is clear: The deal Hunter Biden received, following a multiyear investigation into his affairs, should not be conflated with the decisions made that led to Trump’s federal indictment. The two cases must be considered separate, given that prosecutors are sworn to follow the facts, and aren’t in the business of score-settling.
So while McCarthy is free to link the two for political benefit, when doing so he erodes trust in the rule of law. Republicans argue that Democrats do the same thing when what the right sees as their surrogates in the left-leaning media target Supreme Court justices whose point of view does not match their own.
If those in and around public office prioritized ethics, followed the rules, paid their way at hotels and on commercial forms of transportation and adhered to the law, there would be nothing to argue about.
Add in the reluctance of many in the liberal-leaning media to acknowledge the existence of what became known as the “laptop from hell,” a situation that caused newsrooms to furiously backtrack and self-justify as the lurid contents of Biden’s personal computer seeped out, and a reasonable person has to accept that the case against Hunter Biden has weight.
But in the end, the plea deal Hunter Biden accepted was a decision by federal prosecutors who we trust acted according to the law, without political pressure in any direction, and according to the evidence before them. We also trust that if more evidence appears in the Biden matter, especially when it comes to financial malfeasance, they will do the same.