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Hunter Biden on Wednesday pled not guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges after a federal judge nixed the plea deal the president’s son had reached with prosecutors.
The main sticking point was that the two sides could not agree on whether Hunter Biden would be immune from future charges related to the investigation into his business dealings. His lawyers thought that he should be, while prosecutors and Judge Maryellen Noreika disagreed.
Good for them! It seems pretty outrageous to grant somebody like the president’s son, who appears to have used his name for various money-making schemes, blanket immunity for anything.
If that had happened, Republicans actually would have had a case for saying that Hunter Biden got a sweetheart deal. Therefore, in light of the previously undisclosed scope of the plea deal, this certainly appears to be a victory for the rule of law.
Not that this will stop the GOP from loudly claiming that there is a two-tiered justice system that lets anybody named Biden skate free while an honest, law-abiding citizen like former President Donald Trump is subjected to “witch hunts” for stealing classified documents and flashing them around Mar-a-Lago, fraud, obstruction of justice, starting an insurrection, corruption, making false statements, sexually assaulting women, etc.
And it certainly won’t stop the GOP from focusing all of their energy on “getting” Hunter Biden. If you stop to think about it, it’s pretty crazy to what lengths they are going to make a private citizen’s life miserable… even one who seems to be a scumbag.
Prior to Wednesday’s hearing, for example, Republican lawmakers tried to torpedo the plea agreement. Although they got their desired result, it seems the judge’s objections were unrelated to their efforts.
That doesn’t mean that Hunter Biden should walk free for any crimes he committed. He absolutely should not. And, if his business dealings were merely shady and not illegal, then these tax charges might be the best way to make sure there is a semblance of accountability.
In that sense, the example of the president’s son does show that there is a two-tiered justice system. But it’s not about his last name but rather that he is a wealthy white man who can afford high-priced lawyers to get him off the hook for his various schemes.
If his name were D’Andre Washington and his hustles involved a few hundred bucks instead of millions of dollars, he would probably be in greater legal peril.
Therefore, it would be great if the Department of Justice threw the book at Hunter Biden, just so that all of this nonsense stops (well, that probably wouldn’t end the GOP vendetta, but it would at least make it look even more ridiculous).
Or, absent that, Joe Biden could announce that he is not running for reelection, which would also make all of this interest in Hunter disappear.
But neither of these things is likely to happen, which means that we all are going to have to be subjected to this saga until at least the 2024 election.
