Some might feel sorry for First Son Hunter Biden. After all, it can't be easy living in the shadow of a father who's been prominent in politics for almost his entire life, first as a county councilman, then as a senator, then as vice president to Barack Obama, and now -- unfathomably -- the president of the United States.
But Hunter has brought on most of his problems by himself, notably through grifting off his father's name, developing a rather egregious drug habit, leaving laptops floating around depicting him engaging in eye-opening sexual activity... the list goes on.
One of those mistakes was buying a gun in 2018 and lying about his drug use on a federal form, an error which has led to three gun charges by federal prosecutors. On Tuesday, his lawyers argued that the charges should be dropped because the case against Hunter is politically motivated and has no merit.
He should talk to former President Donald Trump about politically motivated charges; they could commiserate over a (non-alcoholic) beverage.
Georgetown University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley, always a source for solid analysis, found Hunter's argument -- which "presents Hunter as one of the most tragic figures since the fall of Troy" -- utterly bizarre.
Hunter Biden is comparable to children in Japanese internment camps, to undocumented immigrants, to the murdered descendants of the Tsar...
In a brief that borders on delusional, Biden’s lawyers say the son of the president who burned through millions from influence peddling is comparable to all those unfortunate and destitute souls.
Hunter's sob story revolves around the contention that he's only being charged because of Dad's last name. Turley isn't buying it:
Hunter profited massively from the Biden name, but now, his lawyer Abbe Lowell argues, he’s suffering from the “burden” of parentage.
To back up this argument, Lowell cites Plyler v. Doe, a case involving the providing of free education to the children of illegal immigrants, to say that the Constitution, “prevents the government from inflicting harm on children for the conduct of their parents.”
That’s right, Joe Biden is like an undocumented migrant father who carried his kid over the border for a better life.
One can only imagine the press response to any comparison of the Trump children to migrant children.
The New York Post is out with my column on Hunter Biden's curious filing in his gun case where he draws comparisons to the children of undocumented migrants, the dead Tsars, and Japanese internment camp families. It only gets weirder from there. https://t.co/SW7T8EE7pA
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 31, 2024
On several occasions in his piece, Turley points out the media's two-tiered approach to Trump and Hunter; in the former's case, they depict him as a rapist who somehow took millions from poor New Yorkers despite the fact that there were no aggrieved victims in the sham case brought by NY DA Letitia James.
See:
AP Admits It: No Other Case in NY History Like Crusading Prosecutor Letitia James' Pursuit of Trump
Turley:
While the media has endlessly covered how Donald Trump arguments are over-the-top in issues such as immunity, there appears to be comparably little interest in the president’s son’s self-aggrandizing demand for dismissal of his criminal charges.
But here's where Hunter's lawyers completely lose the plot, deciding that we should sympathize with the man who made millions off dubious foreign business deals despite having no experience and who had an affair with his late brother's wife because... he's a tragic historical figure.
It then gets even weirder. Hunter tells the court that it is precisely “great privilege” that makes children like him “the target of animus for that very reason . . . History is replete with children of political figures being abducted and assassinated literally (e.g., murder of Romanov children by Russian revolutionaries) or figuratively (e.g., Odysseus murdering the son of Crown Prince Hector when sacking Troy).”
There seems to be no victim in history who was not a precursor to Hunter.
As I said, one could feel sympathy with the First Son, and he's far from the first to struggle with substance abuse. But it's his own continuing actions that make it hard to shed a tear for him -- refusing to appear before Congress despite a legal subpoena requiring him to show up, selling his "art" for hundreds of thousands of dollars to questionable "buyers," treating his own daughter Navy Joan Roberts like a pariah.
Turley's analysis is spot-on -- this isn't a tragic historical figure, this is a guy who keeps making terrible mistakes and refusing to take accountability for them.
And, as Turley notes -- "this is a gun charge of the type that his own father pushed for strict enforcement." So spare us your historical figure weep fest, and start behaving better.
Shout out to one of the great samurais:
Related:
Hunter Biden, The Movie—'Gauzy' Documentary May Be Coming Soon to Theaters Near You
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