Hunter Biden plea deal
Donald Trump pressured the Georgia secretary of state to find 11,780 votes. He needed those votes to help him steal the 2020 presidential election. He failed. But there’s an audio recording of him applying that pressure attempt. So the whole world knows about it.
Trump also pressured his attorney general to investigate Hunter Biden. He wanted to implicate his then-political rival, Joe Biden, Hunter’s dad. He succeeded. That corruptible attorney general was Bill Barr. He appointed a special prosecutor to do Trump’s dirty deed.
But few people seemed to know about this investigation. That might explain how Trump got away with accusing Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department. That weaponization refers to using government prosecutors to investigate political rivals. And no president in US history has done this more than Trump.
But iPINIONS contends that Trump has normalized this kind of brazen projection. So most people might have taken his projection in this case as a given.
Trump-Appointed prosecutors and judges don’t pay off
In any event, Trump’s special prosecutor spent five years hunting Hunter. It smacked of Inspector Javert hunting
Jean Valjean. The special prosecutor has now charged Hunter. But I doubt he feels any greater satisfaction than Javert felt when he captured Valjean.
The Justice Department has reached an agreement with Hunter Biden for him to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and avoid prosecution on a separate gun charge, according to a court filing on Tuesday, moving to close a long-running and politically explosive investigation into the finances, drug use and international business dealings of President Biden’s troubled son.
Under a deal hashed out over several months by Hunter Biden’s legal team and federal prosecutors, he will plead guilty to misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his 2017 and 2018 taxes on time and agree to probation [i.e., no jail time], the court filing said.
(The New York Times, June 20, 2023)
Except that Trump and his Republican confederates accused Hunter of being a cross between Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. And Ames and Hanssen were notorious traitors.
But these professed Christian politicians couldn’t care less. They don’t even care that Hunter was in the throes of addiction when he committed his crimes. Or that he has been sober and on the road to redemption for years.
Trump and his Republican confederates should hang their heads in shame. But they have no shame and even less respect for American justice.
Instead, Trump is leading these gaslighting hypocrites in criticizing his hand-picked special prosecutor. They accuse him of giving Biden’s son “a sweetheart deal.”
This outcome is rife with irony. But it’s nothing new. Consider Trump’s notorious attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. After all, that featured Trump-appointed judges continually dismissing his legal challenges as frivolous.
But Trump and his Republican confederates are poisoning how Americans think about justice. Republicans will only believe Republican prosecutors, juries, and judges can deliver justice. Democrats will only believe Democratic prosecutors, juries, and judges can deliver justice. Then Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and other groups will believe the same, respectively.
That’s the Tower of Babel-like notion of justice Republicans are advocating.
Projection and the weaponization of the Justice Department
Again, Trump and his Republican confederates accuse Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department. But this investigation betrayed the projection inherent in that. Except that, Trump began his term by declaring that he wanted his attorney general to be his Roy Cohn. And that’s the weaponization of the Justice Department personified.
Yet no Republican ever condemned Trump for telegraphing that corrupt intent. Granted, Trump only said he would do what Republicans had been doing for years. That might explain their failure to condemn him.
Take their infamous investigation of Hillary Clinton, for example. Because that makes Trump’s investigation of Hunter Biden look fair and just. Then-Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) even admitted they weaponized congressional investigative powers to damage Trump’s 2016 political rival:
Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.
(The Washington Post, September 30, 2015)
They found even less to charge Hillary than this special prosecutor found to charge Hunter. But that did not matter. Besides, Trump exposed their abiding aim. He did so when he famously asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
He told Zelensky it wouldn’t matter if he found nothing. Zelensky just needed to announce an investigation. Trump assured him that was all he and his Republican confederates needed. That is, to smear Biden as the most corrupt presidential candidate in US history.
Trump family’s foreign dealings: A hypothetical scenario
Meanwhile, imagine the outcome if turnabout were fair play. What if Biden’s attorney general appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Trump and his family?
For example, they could investigate his daughter’s shady patent grants from China. And they could investigate his son-in-law’s $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia. Both transactions reek of criminal entanglements. I’m sure the Trumps’ business dealings would make the Bidens’ look like a Girl Scout lemonade stand.
Republicans have no regard for law and order
Republicans used to brand themselves as the law-and-order party. But they would bite their tongues if they tried to claim that today. After all, Democrats impeached Trump twice for high crimes and misdemeanors. The evidence of his guilt was beyond reasonable doubt. Yet Republicans acquitted him both times.
Since then, a jury has found him liable for sexual assault. And a federal grand jury has indicted him on 37 felony counts. And that’s for mishandling classified documents and obstructing justice, no less. Still, Republicans insist Donald Trump has more regard for law and order than Biden. They keep playing Republican voters for fools. And Republican voters keep letting them.
Of course, Republicans decided long ago that Trump can do no wrong. Well, they decided that their political power depends on Republicans who worship Trump like a cult leader. And that’s all that matters. The rule of law, democracy, and even the welfare of the country be damned.
Biden’s relief
Biden is relieved, naturally. Mind you, on his first day in office, he could have fired this special prosecutor and all other Trump-appointed US attorneys. That is, just like Trump fired all Obama-appointed attorneys.
But Hunter’s plea deal vindicates Biden’s decision not to. It also gives credence, if more were needed, to the prevailing view that he is not corrupt, unlike Trump.
No doubt, the relief is even greater now that he can hit the reelection campaign trail knowing his son is no longer facing legal jeopardy. Of course, Republicans will continue to accuse him and his son of corruption.
That’s because their projection and hypocrisy know no bounds. Again, they have no regard for the rule of law, and they have no shame.
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