Hunting the Biden Crime Family
Terry H. Schwadron
August 13, 2023
I plead guilty to not caring about Hunter Biden, and to constant chatter about it as if his case represents the end of times.
I do care, however, about hypocrisy among our most fervent government would-be leaders.
Announcement that U.S. Attorney David Weiss now has the official status of Special Counsel ostensibly to roam more freely into potential investigations that involve the decade-old bragging by recovering drug addict Hunter that he might have sway in Washington because of his famous dad is getting oversized political reaction. Presumably, it is a legal green light to explore any supposed lawbreaking by the dad as well as the son.
But Republicans who daily jump up and down to shout for appointment of a special counsel are upset because the choice is Weiss, insisting that this is move by Attorney General Merrick Garland to cover up any allegations — allegations that so far have not led to the conclusions about Joe Biden that House Republicans seek — that might touch the president.
And Democrats who want to look away from anything that might mar a Biden reelection campaign are upset that the Hunter Biden matter won’t just curl up and blow away. And Biden just wants to ignore the whole question, dismissing the drip-by-drip questions emerging as absurd.
It sure seems like the hypocrisy machine is in high working order. The problem here seems to be one of reaching for conclusions before the evidence is in, and a lack of trust — for “political” reasons — that this is what prosecution teams do for a living. If you start with the size of the trophy on the wall, the hunting effort rather gets lost.
We all recognize that the whole incident makes more sense as a partisan political tit-for-tat episode crazily seeking to equate ten-year-old, un-evidenced business influence schemes with Donald Trump’s multiple indictments than it does some caring about how we go about the legal business at Justice.
Indeed, it’s a little vague exactly what crime we’re seeking here, other than the crime of acting bigger than one’s britches should carry.
Can We Focus?
Not only are the central allegations in these matters more smoke than fire — at least at this point — the criticisms often seem wide of the plate.
Breitbart suggested that it was illegal to appoint a sitting U.S. attorney as a special counsel (it doesn’t seem to be such), though it raised no such point about the four years of John Durham as a special counsel to investigate the origins of Russian cooperation with the Trump campaign. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and several colleagues said no one could trust Weiss because after investigating for five years, he came up with a plea deal that a judge declined to support — not because it was a “sweetheart” arrangement, because there was a basic disagreement about what the plea deal covered.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., head of the House Oversight Committee, insisted the appointment had come just as he is about to tie Joe Biden directly to payoffs by foreign interests, and that he now wants to subpoena the president, Weiss, Hunter, and Biden family members. This is the same James Comer who last week misstated the transcripts of testimony of Devon Archer, Hunter’s business partner of a decade ago — himself facing legal difficulties. It is the same Comer who has released memos that he demanded and then has re-interpreted what they say for political advantage.
In any event, the plea deal has fallen through, as have negotiations to rebuild it, and Hunter will go to trial. As we know from the Trump trials, this means that talk about the evidence and the witnesses are supposed to be off the public table, but the rules of campaigning by smear do not recognize such legal niceties.
For Biden to simply ignore the slew of questions about his own behavior seems equally unhelpful, and just the kind of tactic that is spawning more non-legal, but political challenges to his own veracity.
And through all of this, none of the false equivalents being aired explain Trump’s actions or the inappropriateness of Trump’s own family having been fed at the federal trough before, during and after the Trump presidency.
Legally, it is hard to see what this change means right now.
Caring About Hunter
All this is forcing a bad conclusion: You and I are now supposed to care about Hunter Biden, who otherwise seems to have met a wreck of his personal and professional life, and about what he actually did or did not do, either alone or with dad, who kept calling Hunter during meetings with business associates, or had dinner with them, or took (and takes) Hunter on official government trips.
Whatever bad judgments the elder Biden made in the name of loving his broken son, it has never been clear what illegalities he is being alleged to have committed.
That means it is on us to do the research into the various, contradictory, loose conclusions plucked at by House Republicans — and now maybe a special counsel who already has invested five years to come up with two income tax evasions (since paid) and a false signature on a gun permit form to indicate that he was not an addict.
As a one-stop, I’d recommend, “So Where’s the Bribe?” by Philip Bump of The Washington Post, a reporter who has followed the details more closely than many. In short, it shows that over three months, Comer and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, have disclosed vague memos of raw FBI information, invited would-be whistleblowers from the IRS, and held private hearings with Hunter partners including Archer.
“The idea that Biden (and his son Hunter Biden, who served on Burisma’s board) had been bribed took hold as an article of faith on the right. Fox News has mentioned “bribe” or “bribery” in the context of “Biden” more than 1,100 times since the allegation was first made — despite the lack of evidence beyond that FBI interview document and despite the erosion of the credibility of the allegation in at least two ways.”
New articulations that money paid to Hunter and Archer reflects that none that Comer claims went to “the Biden family and their business associates” was shown to have gone to Joe Biden. “Comer and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, implied that the alleged bribe was paid so that Biden, then vice president, would push for the firing of Ukraine’s prosecutor general. This has been debunked repeatedly, for nearly four years. The timeline presented on Fox didn’t match actual events, and Archer had testified that the eventual firing was understood to be detrimental to Burisma, not beneficial.”
If appointment of a special counsel now changes that understanding, let’s act on it. If not, what’s the possible impeachment of a president all about — other than attempts at equal bad looks before the voters? Indeed, if not, even the daily peppering of allegations from the House to dirty Biden do little to clarify anything that changes suitability for office — to say nothing of the price of eggs, health care, passing a budget or reforming immigration policy.
If suitability for office is now the standard, House Republicans and the larger party, have a big, fat example much closer and more vulnerable — if only they wanted to look at it.
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