Does anybody really care if Hunter paid his taxes late or filled out a gun registration card wrong? No! At least they shouldn't. Nor should they indict the president for having a drug-addicted kid who's posted a bunch of pornographic images of himself on the internet. Unpleasant but that doesn't make Joe unfit for office.
If it turns out that Hunter was selling influence to the White House and his old man, that's a different story. I suspect that's exactly what happened and despite his insistence to the contrary, Senior was fully aware of it. That's a problem.
Actually, it's a convenient opportunity for the Dems to dump a rapidly deteriorating dog that won't hunt. Easier to let Hunter get the blame than the Dem leadership. If Joe's mental health (cognitive decline) wasn't such an issue, Hunter wouldn't prove such a tender morsel for Joe's party.
Joe and Hunter: Biden Ignores Political Perils and Embraces Scandal-Plagued Son
Some presidential allies worry that Hunter Biden’s prominent appearances are a liability
President Biden and Hunter Biden at the White House Easter Egg Roll in April.
By Annie LinskeyFollow
Updated July 29, 2023 12:00 am ET
WASHINGTON—Schmoozing at a state dinner for the Indian prime minister. Strolling past a bank of cameras before taking off in Marine One for Camp David. Waving to crowds from the White House balcony on the Fourth of July.
These are all pieces of presidential theater. But in each instance, the actor is Hunter Biden, not his father, Joe, though the president is close at hand. Taken together, they capture how closely and squarely in the spotlight President Biden has kept his scandal-plagued son.
That proximity worries some presidential allies who privately say that parading Hunter Biden around serves as a reminder of the younger Biden’s poor judgment and past attempts to monetize his political connections as House Republicans step up their investigation into whether son and father inappropriately profited from the family’s power.
The negative spotlight settled again on the younger Biden this past week when a judge refused to accept a plea deal that would have allowed him to acknowledge guilt on misdemeanor tax charges and likely avoid prison time, as well as skirting a gun charge. After prosecutors and defense attorneys disagreed over whether Hunter Biden could face additional charges, the judge gave them 30 days to provide more information.
Several people close to the president explain his decision to keep Hunter Biden close as stemming from a fatherly concern for a son with a long history of substance abuse. They note that the president, like the parents of many people who have struggled with addiction, is always worried about the potential for a relapse. They also say that the president frequently invites his extended family on trips and to White House events.
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Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor tax charges after a federal judge deferred a planned guilty plea deal. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Given the deep bond between the father and son, aides said that they loathe bringing up concerns regarding Hunter Biden and that few staff members are willing to do so.
“If the world was controlled by political consultants, I don’t think [President Biden] would do some of the things he’s done,” said David Axelrod, who was Barack Obama’s top political strategist. “But he’s acting as a father, not a candidate, and signaling his unshakable loyalty to his son.”
Republicans have been more blunt: “There’s a number of places I probably would not have had invited him to,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said in an interview. And on Fox News this past week, McCarthy signaled that the House is on a clear course to pursuing an impeachment case against President Biden, citing claims of corruption tied to his son’s overseas business dealings, though the speaker later tempered those comments.
Hunter Biden also accompanied his father on a trip to Ireland earlier this year, traveling by Air Force One and appearing with the president at several stops. He also attended a state dinner for French President Emmanuel Macron.
Some have seized on Hunter Biden’s appearance at a more recent state dinner held at the White House for Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister. It was attended by Attorney General Merrick Garland, and it happened to be two days after the Justice Department came to the tentative deal that collapsed. Republicans have denounced the accord as a sweetheart deal.
Asked the following day about Hunter Biden’s attendance at the state dinner, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “I’m just not going to get into family discussion—personal family discussion.”
There is a limit to the bond. Jean-Pierre on Thursday said “no” when asked if there was any possibility that the president would pardon his son.
Hunter Biden has written extensively about his relationship with his father, crediting him with saving his life when, as vice president, Joe Biden, plus a slimmed-down security detail, showed up at his adult son’s Washington apartment and insisted he get help for his addiction. “He never abandoned me, never shunned me, never judged me, no matter how bad things got,” Hunter Biden wrote in his 2021 memoir. “As busy as Dad always was, he never, ever gave up on me.”
In a section of the book focused on his decision to join the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, Hunter Biden wrote that he has apologized repeatedly for causing his father so many political headaches. “He responded by saying how sorry he was for putting me on the spot, for bringing so much heat onto me,” Hunter Biden wrote. “That’s the biggest political debate my dad and I had for months: Who should apologize to whom?”
House GOP investigators are seeking to tie President Biden to Hunter Biden’s work overseas including in Ukraine and China. The White House has repeatedly said the president wasn’t involved in his son’s businesses, and Hunter Biden has said that he had a longstanding agreement not to talk about deals with his father. None of The Wall Street Journal’s reporting has found that Joe Biden benefited from his son’s business activities.
Recent days showed what is in store for the GOP’s attacks. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) displayed during a committee hearing explicit photos of Hunter Biden that she said came from his laptop, in an unsubstantiated attempt to accuse him of sex trafficking.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) released a Federal Bureau of Investigation document in which Hunter Biden was described by an informant as “not smart” and the alleged recipient of millions of dollars in payments in exchange for his political connections. Democrats criticized the document’s release and said many of its claims had been previously debunked.
On Monday, Hunter Biden’s former business associate, Devon Archer, is set to go before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability for a transcribed interview in which GOP investigators are expected to press him on business deals that involved Hunter Biden and other family members. Among other business connections, the pair served together on the board of Burisma.
The president has repeatedly said he is proud of his son and supports his efforts to turn his life around. Beyond Hunter Biden’s efforts to move past his addiction problems, the two share a bond forged by a 1972 car accident that killed Joe Biden’s first wife and daughter. His two young sons, Hunter and Beau, survived the crash. Beau Biden died in 2015 of brain cancer, leaving the president with one surviving son who at the time seemed to be losing his yearslong battle with addiction.
White House aides and allies of the president say they have little concern over the potential for Hunter Biden’s woes to drag down Biden’s approval rating, which has been hovering just over 40% for months. They add that recent elections show that Hunter Biden has had little impact on the president with independent voters and that most Democrats pay little attention to the twists and turns of GOP investigations into his past.
“They tried and tried and tried to make the Biden family an issue in 2020—and lost,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.),a national co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign. “They tried again harder to make Hunter in particular an issue in 2022,” he added, saying the result was a poor showing in the midterms. “So by all means, try again,” he said.
Some Republicans tread carefully on matters relating to the president’s son. “One thing you never heard me do is get overly critical about his defense of Hunter,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.) said about President Biden. “I’ve never faulted him for his love for his son, his expressions of support.” Cramer’s adult son struggled with addiction and died in 2018 after he was hospitalized for liver and kidney failure.
The Bidens’ emphasis on the importance of family put pressure on the president to acknowledge that he has a seventh grandchild, a young girl in Arkansas whom Hunter Biden says he fathered while in the throes of drug addiction. After weeks of speculation, President Biden and first lady Jill Biden said in a statement Friday that the girl, Navy Joan Roberts, is a family member.
“Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” the Bidens said in the statement, referring to Lunden Roberts. “This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter,” according to the statement. “Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy,” the statement added.
House Republicans, who gained subpoena power when they won the majority in the midterms, are moving toward requiring testimony from allies of Hunter Biden and are seeking the names of collectors who purchased his artwork and the amount paid for the paintings. In recent years, Hunter Biden has pursued an art career and is selling paintings through a New York art gallery. Asking prices have been as high as $500,000.
Republicans, and some ethics lawyers, have raised questions about whether the art sales could become an avenue for supporters of the president to funnel money to his family. With input from the White House counsel’s office, Hunter Biden and his gallery devised a blind purchasing system. The gallery sets prices, handles sales and doesn’t disclose names to Hunter Biden, according to Abbe Lowell, one of Hunter Biden’s lawyers.
As these fights gear up, those close to the White House expect a more robust response from Hunter Biden than during the 2020 campaign, where he played a minimal role. “He’s not going to sit back and passively take the smears, attacks and lies from certain Republicans in their glass houses,” said Michael LaRosa, a former aide to Jill Biden. “You’ll eventually see and hear a more outspoken Hunter Biden fight back this time around.”
Lindsay Wise, Jack Gillum and Simon J. Levien contributed to this article.
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