Analysis: Joe Biden’s agonizing wait for his own son’s trial

Another president awaits another verdict from another jury.

Less than two weeks after Donald Trump learned he had been convicted of 34 criminal charges related to buying adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ silence, Joe Biden is enduring his own agonizing vigil as his son Hunter awaits the outcome of his inauguration trial illegal firearm.

Jurors return Tuesday morning to consider the evidence against the president’s son, who has pleaded not guilty to three charges related to a 2018 gun purchase that prosecutors say violated federal law because he was crack addict. The defense argued that there was no direct evidence that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was using the drug when he obtained the firearm.

The two trials — one in Trump’s old New York neighborhood and the other in Wilmington, Delaware — represent a notable departure from traditional presidential campaigns. Never has a former president and supposed candidate of a major party been convicted of a crime. Not even the son of a sitting president faced this possibility in a trial. Trump pleaded not guilty in New York, as well as making three other criminal charges before the trials were postponed.

The Hunter Biden and Trump cases are very different, as is the way the former and current first families responded to the trials. For example, there were no daily complaints from the president’s son about a “corrupt” and “biased” judge. Trump’s conviction for falsifying financial records to cover up a payment to an adult film star, on the contrary, led the former president to warn of retaliation.

He has also absurdly claimed that he is a persecuted political dissident who compares himself to South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela. In the latest stage of his legal quagmire, Trump participated in an online pre-sentence meeting on Monday, two days after he used his Truth Social network to launch a new attack on the probity of the verdict he promised to appeal. “These are not legitimate trials; they are just part of an illegal POLITICAL WITCH HUNT the likes of which our country has never seen before!” Trump wrote.

Joe Biden, who said he was trying to restore faith in the justice system after Trump’s presidency, promised not to interfere in his son’s federal trial and said in a solemn interview with ABC News that he would not pardon his son. This is especially significant because Hunter Biden could face up to 25 years in prison if he is convicted, although the sentence for a first-time offender is unlikely to be that severe.

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Although cameras were barred from the courtroom at both trials, each unfolded against a backdrop of tense political drama and the glare of publicity surrounding the former and current first families.

The former president’s adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr., sometimes appeared in court in New York. And throngs of Republican lawmakers — including House Speaker Mike Johnson — were eager to embellish the presumptive Republican nominee’s claims that he was the victim of a politicized justice system that amounts to an attack on the democratic rule of law by a large American political party.

Former first lady Melania Trump did not attend. Biden avoided his son’s trial in Wilmington, but first lady Jill Biden led a gathering of the clan at the courthouse last week. She crossed the Atlantic four times last week, balancing her official role alongside her husband in commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day and a state visit to France with wanting to be with her stepson in his time of greatest need.

In a striking moment in the trial’s closing arguments on Monday, prosecutor Leo Wise told jurors from a state where many families have a history of interacting with the Bidens that they should not draw any conclusions from the solid bond. of the first family and presence at the trial. “The people sitting in the gallery are not evidence. You may recognize them from the news… but respectfully, none of that matters.” Wise added: “Your decision can only be made based on evidence.”

Biden’s statement at the start of the trial – that “I am the president, but I am also a father” – summed up the strain of his role as the titular head of the country’s justice system and the pain he would naturally endure upon seeing that a Dear son, who dealt with addiction and worked hard to recover, goes to trial amid a media storm.

Hunter Biden’s trial is the latest cruel twist in the story of a family that has suffered more tragedy than most could bear. The story of how the future president lost his first wife and daughter when he was a newly elected senator in the early 1970s and raised his children with his second wife, the current first lady, became part of his personal political mythology . Nearly a decade ago, Biden suffered the loss of his oldest son, Beau, who had brain cancer. The president’s pain remains present and often comes to the surface during public events.

Hunter Biden’s trial also comes at a time when the president is already under extreme pressure, in the midst of an intensifying re-election campaign, in which he faces an opponent who, he warns, is bent on destroying American democracy.

Biden’s personal burden is, however, being exacerbated by the fact that, at 81 years old, he is the oldest president in history and opponents highlight every misstep or moment of seniority to accuse him of being unfit for office. He just returned from Europe on Sunday, but returns to the continent on Wednesday (12) for the G7 summit. And his first critical debate with Trump, on CNNon June 27, will provide the kind of test of his mental faculties and emotional fortitude worthy of anything any modern president seeking re-election has faced.

It is not uncommon for presidents to have to deal with distractions and constraints imposed by family members during their term in office. President Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton the year he left office in 2001 due to a mid-1980s drug conviction. And the late Billy Carter, President Jimmy Carter’s younger brother , faced several tax and ethical investigations. But no president has been forced to face the possibility of his son going to prison.

The violations of the Biden family’s dignity and privacy were profound during the trial, which featured uncomfortable testimony about Hunter Biden’s former cocaine addiction. Beau Biden’s widow, Hallie, who had a relationship with Hunter while they were grieving, testified about their joint cocaine use that she says now embarrasses her.

In a moving scene, the accused’s daughter, Naomi, was taken to testify by the defense and was later subjected to rigorous interrogation by prosecutors. The way addiction devastates loved ones and the user alike was revealed when a message from Naomi to her father saying: “I’m sorry dad, I can’t take this”, was introduced into evidence. Meanwhile, media organizations aired an excerpt from Hunter Biden’s audiobook that chronicles his addiction spiral and was used in the prosecution’s case.

Two politicized trials with critical differences

Given the identities of those involved and the tense national moment in the midst of a hotly contested general election, there is no way the Trump and Hunter Biden trials could not have been politicized.

Trump claimed that he is the victim of a vendetta by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, although he was indicted by a panel, enjoyed the presumption of innocence like any other accused criminal and was tried by a jury of his peers. When Biden’s plea deal collapsed in the court of a Trump-appointed judge and when Attorney General Merrick Garland named David Weiss, the prosecutor investigating Biden, as special counsel, some Democrats asked whether Republican pressure aimed at harming the president had heavy on the renewed push for a trial.

But both trials were conducted according to the rules of evidence and provided broad protections for the defendants. And the same fundamental American principle that was cited by prosecutors in Trump’s trial was used by Wise in his summary on Monday. “No one is above the law,” he said, urging jurors not to treat this case differently “because of who the defendant is.”

There is a critical difference between the two trials that debunks much of the political noise that surrounds them. Hunter Biden, unlike Trump, has not served as president and has no chance of occupying the Oval Office as commander in chief on January 20th.

Although Biden faces serious charges and will go on trial again in September in a separate tax case, his alleged offenses have nothing to do with the Constitution or threats to democracy. Trump’s accusations, however, center on the alleged misuse of national security documents he accumulated at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office.

He was also accused in two separate cases – one federal and one in Georgia – of the ultimate crime in a democracy: trying to overturn the will of the voters. The former president is awaiting a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on his sweeping immunity claims arising from the federal election interference case which, if the court rules in his favor and he wins a second term, could bode well for a presidency. almost without restrictions that could border on autocracy.

The second distinction lies in the fact that Joe Biden’s behavior is not an issue in the criminal proceedings against his son. And House Republicans have so far failed to find that the president benefited from Hunter Biden’s trade deals in countries like Ukraine and China while his father was vice president — even though the younger Biden’s activity raises serious ethical questions.