Unsurprisingly, Hunter Biden was found guilty on Tuesday of all three federal gun charges he faced relating to the violation of laws put in place to stop drug addicts from owning firearms. Ironically, President Joe Biden was speaking on the subject of gun safety when news broke of Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict.
Of course, Hunter Biden’s past drug use (which has also included the smoking of dairy products) has received widespread attention, especially with the Biden family leaning hard into Hunter Biden’s position of victimhood as an addict.
“Recovery is possible by the grace of God, and I am blessed to experience that gift one day at a time,” Hunter Biden said in a statement following the verdict, while his attorney, Abbe Lowell, said, “Through all he has been through in his recovery, including this trial, Hunter has felt grateful for and blessed by the love and support of his family.”
This followed journalist Molly Jong-Fast’s appearance on MSNBC, speaking of Hunter Biden’s “disease.”
Subtle, guys.
Setting aside the obvious reframing of this specific issue, which meandered from Hunter Biden’s total innocence to Hunter Biden being a victim of right-wing and/or Russian disinformation to Hunter Biden being a victim of a “disease.” It’s crucial that people don’t take the obvious bait here: the bait of distraction.
Societies have always had room set aside for blood sport masked as justice — for example, public beheadings in the town square — and despite our self-prescribed sense of growth, not much has changed. We might not lock criminals in wooden stocks to act as target practice for street urchins with rotting fruit, but the hunger for public punishment is still there.
And, despite the best efforts of the Biden administration and the legacy media, there is still a thirst for public punishment regarding Hunter Biden. On the surface, with this guilty verdict, it may seem that this thirst has been quenched.
But nothing could be further from the truth, at least for those who still live in reality and refuse to fall for the Biden Justice Department’s game of smoke and mirrors.
The brutal fact is that these charges are the tip of the Hunter Biden iceberg, and they represent the bare minimum the Department of Justice could get away with. The same department worked to give Hunter Biden a sweetheart immunity deal that collapsed at the last minute. The same department worked to leverage the statute of limitations to avoid this problem altogether. And the same department is totally ignoring the deep history of alleged corruption involving not just Hunter Biden but the Big Guy himself: President Joe Biden.
Yes, Hunter Biden being charged for gun charges is entirely valid. But it’s also possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason or as part of something immeasurably less valid.
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Make no mistake: This entire performance is only being carried out so that the Biden administration can lazily declare that political bias in the justice system simply does not exist and pretend that there is no difference between Hunter Biden’s cherry-picked charges and the continued, widespread abuse of power being used to throw former President Donald Trump, Biden’s primary political adversary, behind bars.
Don’t fall for it.
Ian Haworth is a columnist, speaker, and podcast host. You can find him on Substack and follow him on X at @ighaworth.