There are some obvious similarities between this week鈥檚 of first son Hunter Biden and that of former President Donald Trump last month.
Both men were charged in cases that, as a matter of standard prosecutorial practice, arguably wouldn鈥檛 have even gone to trial with more typical defendants. In both cases, they faced juries of their peers in their hometowns 鈥 Biden in Wilmington, Delaware, Trump in New York. In both cases, once those jurors heard the evidence, they returned the only verdicts they could reasonably have reached: guilty, across the board.
There are also, of course, stark differences between the cases as well. The most important one, in terms of the future leadership of America, is how the two likely nominees for president this year reacted to the jury verdicts.
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Trump, to the surprise of exactly no one, selfishly lashed out against the process and everyone in it during and after his hush-money trial. In doing so, he has sought to deliberately undermine the legitimacy of the entire justice system, with the help of the usual chorus of MAGA sycophants in Congress and elsewhere.
President Joe Biden 鈥 though clearly wracked with the pain that any parent of such a wayward son would feel 鈥 nonetheless publicly stood by the justice process, pledging not to use his pardon power to spare his son whatever consequences are coming.
It鈥檚 certainly not the only illustration of the immense character gulf between these two candidates, but it鈥檚 a stark one.
The younger Biden was convicted in connection with his purchase of a handgun in 2018. Delaware鈥檚 sane (unlike in Missouri) require that all firearms purchasers be subjected to federal background checks.
As part of that process, Hunter Biden 鈥 a long-time crack cocaine addict 鈥 lied on a form by stating that he wasn鈥檛 using drugs. That lie was the basis of the three felony convictions the federal jury in Delaware returned on Tuesday.
It would be unusual for a first-time offender to get prison time for that particular stand-alone charge, but it does present a genuine future threat to the president鈥檚 son. Hunter Biden still faces federal tax-evasion charges. The fact that he鈥檚 now a convicted felon automatically increases the chances of incarceration for any future convictions.
Unlike Trump鈥檚 conviction, this one is federal, meaning President Biden could theoretically pardon his son. He has responsibly, categorically ruled it out. 鈥淚 will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal,鈥 the president said in a statement this week.
Pardoning a presidential son would be a gross abuse of the pardon process. But that bar is already historically low after Trump鈥檚 crass and repeated trashing of that process as president, when beneficiaries included his son-in-law鈥檚 father, his business associates and cronies, a war criminal and assorted political supporters.
Trump has since floated the possibility of pardoning the anti-democracy thugs who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to help him overturn an election.
Yet Biden, out of respect for the justice process, won鈥檛 unsheathe that sword even for his own son.
This is how a president is supposed to act.
Contrast that with the behavior of not only Trump, but of his congressional enablers. More than a dozen of them in the Senate, including both of Missouri鈥檚 senators, responded to Trump鈥檚 conviction with a temper tantrum of a letter vowing to sabotage Justice Department funding and oppose all of Biden鈥檚 political and judicial appointees.
Their allegation of 鈥lawfare鈥 鈥 that the White House somehow reached into a New York state legal system over which it has no power and caused Trump鈥檚 conviction 鈥 is not only an unsupported and stunningly irresponsible claim, but an ironic one. In the case of Hunter Biden, his father鈥檚 Justice Department appointed the special prosecutor (originally a Trump appointee) who just won the conviction. The administration has otherwise stayed out of it as the federal cases have closed in on the first son.
You鈥檇 be hard-pressed to find a single prominent elected Democrat bellyaching on President Biden鈥檚 behalf regarding the conviction of his son in this unusual trial.
Public figures should be stringently held accountable for their crimes 鈥 perhaps even more stringently than private citizens 鈥 as a demonstration that no one is above the law in America. One party clearly still believes that, while the so-called 鈥渓aw-and-order鈥 party has conveniently forgotten it.
