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Hunter Biden on the left, Donald Trump on the right
CNN
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The unprecedented two-week courtroom drama that led to historic convictions for a former president and the son of a sitting president also produced clear political lessons.
The survival of the rule of law and pure justice in America may depend on the choice of voters in November.
The possibility of a different path for the country under President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump was highlighted by how the men, their families and political campaigns reacted to the two trials and verdicts..
Biden has not tried to use executive powers or his office’s media megaphone to interfere in the prosecution of his son Hunter, instead allowing the Justice Department to win a conviction on Tuesday, which could mean prison time for a recovering addict and harm his own 2024 campaign. “I accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers his appeal,” the president said after a jury found his son guilty. He was charged with lying on a federal background check and possessing a gun while addicted to or using illegal drugs. Hunter Biden has already said he will not pardon his son. In his initial reaction to the verdict, Hunter Biden did not attack the judge or the prosecutors, but simply thanked his family for their love and support and said he felt lucky to be drug-free again.
The Bidens’ response was in stark contrast to how Trump reacted to his own hush-money lawsuit nearly two weeks ago when he was tried and convicted. Trump blasted the witnesses, prosecutors, jury and judge. “This was done by the Biden Administration to hurt his political opponents,” he claimed. He denounced it as a “rigged decision” even though the Justice Department had no involvement in the lawsuit brought by the Manhattan district attorney. Since then, Trump has warned that he will use his presidential power to punish his political opponents and manipulate the justice system to his will.
“Sometimes revenge is justified,” Trump told television psychologist Phil McGraw last week. “To be honest with you, sometimes it is justified.” Speaking to Fox News last week, he said of the Bidens, “I’m perfectly within my rights to go after them.”
During the trial in Manhattan, Trump’s former hometown argued that he wouldn’t get a fair verdict in the mostly Democratic city, but Delaware is a Democratic state and a jury there just convicted the president’s son. One juror told CNN on Tuesday that politics were never mentioned during deliberations. Jurors in Trump’s trial have yet to speak, likely out of fear that the former president’s intimidation tactics could lead to them being identified.
If Biden had been acquitted, Republicans could undoubtedly have argued that a biased jury in a state where everyone knows the president’s family had proved their case, but a guilty verdict undermined one of their political arguments.
Joe Biden came into office promising to restore the independence of the Department of Justice after Trump’s repeated attempts during his term to use the department’s legal and investigative powers as if it were his own personal law firm. But there is no doubt that the former president will do the same, or even more, if he takes back the White House in November, ignoring the department’s core mission of enforcing the law “independently and impartially.” Trump has already vowed to prosecute Biden and his family and “eliminate” what he calls the “deep state.” Several outside groups are making plans to support Trump.
Hunter Biden’s sentence also contradicts a central argument in multiple legal defenses that Trump has asserted in four criminal cases, several civil cases and throughout his presidential campaign: the false idea that he is the victim of a legal system weaponized by the Justice Department that targets only Republicans.
“This is where the weaponization of the Justice Department to go after only its adversaries ends,” former senior Justice Department official and federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin said on CNN Max on Tuesday. “This is a testament to the fact that the Justice Department, under Attorney General (Merrick) Garland, is committed to getting to grips with this head-on and bringing to justice those who we believe deserve prosecution.”
The idea of Justice Department neutrality was reinforced by comments after the trial by David Weiss, the former US attorney for Delaware appointed by President Trump and whom Garland elevated to special counsel to avoid the appearance of political bias. Weiss thanked the Attorney General for allowing him to act independently. And after two tense weeks that had dragged the justice system into a sea of toxic politics, he added: “No one is above the law in this country. Everyone must be held accountable for their actions, even this defendant.” But Weiss added that “Hunter Biden should not be held more accountable than other citizens convicted of the same conduct.”
Former Republican Congressman Ken Buck told CNN’s Erin Burnett that Joe Biden handled the painful matter of his son’s trial and conviction well: “[He]tried to stay out of the fray, recognized that the Department of Justice was in a very difficult position, and did a great job. People are looking at this case and seeing that it was done in an independent and fair way.”
Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University history professor and CNN political analyst, said the guilty verdicts for Trump and Hunter Biden reflect the high stakes of the November election. “[Joe Biden]is not only saying that the decision is up to the court, he’s saying that he’s not going to use his presidential powers to issue any kind of pardon. And he stands in contrast to the previous president, who attacked the justice system. He’s questioned the legitimacy of the justice system.” Zelizer added, “Voters will have to make a choice: What kind of response do they want? And what kind of person do they want in the Oval Office in January 2025?”
The idea that the Justice Department is only going after Republicans is not only undermined by Hunter Biden’s gun conviction and his looming tax trial in September. New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez is on trial in New York on bribery and corruption charges. In May, the Justice Department indicted another prominent Democrat, Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife, for accepting about $600,000 from Azerbaijan’s state oil company and a Mexican bank in exchange for official services as members of Congress. Both Democrats have pleaded not guilty.
Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin highlighted the difference between Trump and Biden: “Republicans attack our entire judicial system and the rule of law because they don’t like the outcome of one case, while the son of the president of the United States is indicted and you don’t hear a single Democrat cry out injustice,” the Maryland Democrat said.
But one of the lessons of the Trump era is that the truth rarely matters. Revealing inconvenient facts never quite penetrates the echo chambers that dominate Republican politics and conservative media. So, far from being chastised by the collapse of Trump’s persecution narrative or the successful application of the rule of law in criminal trials, Trump’s allies in Congress have simply used the Biden ruling to come up with a new set of lies and conspiracy theories.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer said the Delaware trial was “a step toward accountability.” But the Kentucky Republican warned that Justice Department officials “continue to shield Big Joe Biden.” Comer has repeatedly accused the president of profiting from his son’s ethically questionable business in Ukraine and China while Biden was vice president, even though his committee and the House Republican impeachment inquiry found no evidence of such.
House Speaker Mike Johnson took a similar approach. “We will continue to demand accountability for the Biden family’s corrupt business dealings,” said the Louisiana Republican, a strong supporter of former President Trump, despite the former president’s recent loss in a civil lawsuit alleging that his adult sons and their organizations committed massive insurance and bank fraud. Stephen Miller, former White House domestic policy adviser to former President Trump, argued that the Justice Department was actually patronizing Hunter Biden by not indicting him on 50 felony counts of foreign influence. The department should “tell him the only way he can avoid a life sentence is to testify against the big guy,” Miller said on X.
Republican reactions to Biden’s conviction were some bizarre. One of Trump’s most staunch supporters, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, baselessly suggested in X that her jury’s verdict was some kind of elaborate conspiracy. “Hunter Biden was just victimized by the Deep State to show that justice was ‘balanced,’ while Biden’s other crimes remain ignored,” she wrote in X.
