Don’t see the Hunter Biden gun case as an effort to hold the president’s prodigal son to account, but as a political maneuver aimed at protecting the prosecutors, perhaps the defendant, and certainly his father.
This sideshow diverts the public’s gaze from far larger corruption: Felony gun charges are piddling when weighed against the selling out of our country, not to mention the leverage Hunter’s dubious dealings and debauchery might have provided our enemies in the way of kompromat.
Yes, it features many “shiny objects,” some juicy, and others genuinely newsworthy, from the riveting trainwreck that was Hunter Biden’s life at the time he committed the alleged offenses — lurid details of his drug abuse, relationships and recklessness — to the vindicating-for-The-Post-but-still-unbelievable Justice Department decision to enter the “laptop from hell” into evidence.
Yet, while Special Counsel David Weiss and by extension Attorney General Merrick Garland will play this as the Biden Justice Department’s pursuit of even the president’s son without fear or favor, it’s no such thing.
First, Hunter may well be found not guilty, or at least get a hung jury. His team is tugging at the heartstrings of jurors hailing from a state in which the Bidens are royalty.
The defense is diving deep into the tragedies that have befallen their royal family and Hunter’s harrowing struggles with alcohol and drug abuse — struggles with which many of the jurors are likely to sympathize, based on their own experiences.
Biden-friendly media have reported that Joe Biden is concerned about the case, making this a story about a father’s love for his targeted son as well — turning the Bidens not only into potentially sympathetic characters, but victims.
Even a guilty verdict may lose on appeal, gobsmackingly enough, by using as a defense a pro-Second Amendment Supreme Court ruling that Joe Biden has panned.
Yet this case — involving offenses at a remove from Hunter Biden’s father, heard in the most favorable venue for the Bidens that any case could have been brought — was never supposed to happen.
It inadvertently serves as an indictment of prosecution and defense alike.
Recall how we got here: For years, key players at the Justice Department and FBI systematically sabotaged the real case against Hunter Biden.
Prosecutors and investigators ignored or declined to pursue evidence of his serious, compromising, and national-security-imperiling misconduct — ranging from alleged violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act to tax evasion connected to the Biden family’s international influence-peddling business.
Most egregiously, prosecutors let the statutes of limitation lapse on material offenses most closely linked to then-Vice President Biden’s policy portfolio.
A pair of IRS agents, appalled at seeing their peers tank the investigation, risked everything and came forward as whistleblowers.
They brought forth reams of evidence — all through proper congressional channels — tracking how federal law enforcement had protected the Bidens.
Their evidence was only compounded by the fact that the same federal forces were simultaneously engaging in an ever-intensifying jihad against Donald Trump.
Caught in a potential scandal, the Delaware US Attorney’s Office colluded with Hunter Biden’s legal team to concoct a sweetheart plea deal containing a global immunity get-out-of-jail-free card that insulated Biden from all of the most serious charges he might otherwise have faced.
But the deal collapsed under questioning from Delaware Judge Maryellen Noreika, forcing AG Garland to appoint Weiss special counsel.
Seen in this light, the current trial is clearly a fig leaf aimed at rehabilitating the Justice Department while putting Hunter Biden before the most hospitable possible jury — all at far remove from conduct remotely relating to his father.
The pending Los Angeles case against Hunter Biden is only slightly less deceptive.
It at least deals with alleged financial crimes stemming from his work in the Biden “family business” monetizing his father’s name, including at the tail end of Joe’s vice presidency.
But the indictment never makes reference to that name. And prosecutors further distract from the underlying corruption by focusing, in great detail, on Hunter’s lavish spending on escorts and exotic cars.
The real story of Hunter Biden’s legal troubles isn’t about sex, guns, drugs or even taxes.
Rather, it’s about the now-First Family’s global international influence peddling operation — and a government-wide effort to cover it up.
Benjamin Weingarten is editor at large at RealClearInvestigations.