Difference between convicted felons Hunter Biden and hunted Trump

Hunter Biden, son of the incumbent President of the United States, is now a convicted ‘felon’. The jury in a Delaware court has found him guilty on all charges on Tuesday. An ex-President (and possibly the next President too) is also a convicted felon now. The jury in a Manhattan court found Donald Trump guilty of all charges last month. It seems a victory for the US judicial system but the cracks are showing elsewhere.

India has been riven with accusations of ‘godi media’ when it comes to coverage of those in power. The US media has also pronounced judgement on India’s fourth estate in the past few years. But Hunter Biden’s conviction for buying and possessing a gun while still a drug addict and lying about this on a government form had US media outlets tying themselves up in knots trying to explain this turn of events in a way that is not unflattering to the First Family.

During the Trump trial last month, most ‘liberal’ media in the US conducted a parallel trial concurrently. When the former US President and frontrunner for the White House this November was found guilty on all 34 counts of felony, there was unabashed glee in studios and broadsheets, and they were at pains to amplify Trump’s characteristic derision of the verdict. Several aspects of the trial—and even its run-up—that indicated bias were glossed over.

But the same US media are still trying to portray Biden Jr not as the pampered son of a powerful family who lives beyond his means but as an American aam aadmi. That the troubled Biden is somehow a representative of all beleaguered ordinary Americans suffering from addiction. The difference between him and other American addicts, of course, is that he comes from a close-knit family that had the means and influence to deal with his habit but did not.

After the verdict, President Biden has been reiterating his faith in the rule of law, never mind the ‘shock and awe’ tactic of the powerful clan turning up in force for the hearings—armoured vehicles and Secret Service personnel in tow—in sleepy Wilmington. Moreover, the elaborate machinations that preceded the trial made it very clear that the defendant’s family did try to prevent the case ever coming to trial, by using levers of the government as well as a plea deal.

Procedural delays and framing of lesser charges—tactics familiar to Indians—were attempted to prevent the trial. Only the intervention of the Trump-appointed federal judge in Delaware thwarted the Biden team’s plans. His lawyers have appealed against the judge also rejecting their plea that the case violates the US Constitution’s Second Amendment giving citizens the right to bear arms. Truly ironic given President Biden’s “strict” stance on gun control!

Anyway, the evidence against Hunter was so overwhelming—including from his ex-wife, ex-lover (who was his brother’s widow), and other women—that it became clear why the Bidens tried so hard to suppress it before. Now the new line being put forward by helpful media outlets is that the jurors were initially divided down the middle on the verdict and the unanimous decision was only arrived at the next day of confabulations. What does that convey?

On Hunter Biden’s sentencing too, many ‘views’ put out by news outlets and the experts called to weigh in on it insinuated that Biden does not really deserve a jail term much less the maximum provided by the law—25 years—as he did not really commit that serious a crime and had become ‘clean’ now. But Biden did lie in order to buy a firearm in 2018, and then did possess a gun despite being an addict, although he had the family and legal support to desist from both.

In fact, one ‘former prosecutor’ in the US even opined that a better alternative to bringing him to trial would have been to simply send Biden for de-addiction and counselling. To many Indians that sounds suspiciously like the case of the minor driving a Porsche who ran over and killed two techies in Pune last month being let off with orders to just write a 300-word essay on “road accidents and their solution” and then “work with the RTO to understand traffic rules”.

As in the case of the Indian “poor little rich boy” so also the American one, both that the wherewithal to know better and not break laws. There is reason to believe that both violated the law anyway precisely because their families had the means to save them from the consequences of their actions. Besides, Biden was 48 years old at the time when he lied on a form and bought a handgun, not some naïve juvenile. And it was his lover who disposed of the gun, not he.

Ironically, on the same day his son was convicted for illegally possessing a gun and lying in order to buy it while addicted to crack, a suddenly energetic President Biden told a cheering audience at a gun safety meeting in Washington DC that it is time to “ban assault weapons” and add stricter purchase safeguards. And no one in the US media or public space has yet asked the question that many Indians might well be wondering about: why did Hunter need a gun?

Thanks to the deliberate underplaying of facts by the media, some see conspiracy even in the conviction because it could be used to deflect attention from more serious charges against Hunter. By showing his son has been held to account like an ordinary American and by praising the judicial system, President Biden may aver his son has paid his debt to society. However, if Hunter does not get a jail sentence but Trump does, many will certainly scream “Unfair!”

Judge Maryellen Noreika has indicated she will pronounce Biden’s sentence 120 days after the conviction but has not set a date. She is expected to consider several factors, including Biden being a first-time offender but the maximum sentence is 25 years and a fine of $750,000. Trump’s sentencing by Judge Juan Merchan is set to be pronounced on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention to select him as the party candidate for the election.

Also, Hunter Biden’s trials are not over yet. He faces a tax evasion charge in September in California. He is charged with six misdemeanour counts of failure to file his tax returns and pay taxes, one felony count of tax evasion and two felony counts of filing a false return. The charges make him sound like a feckless rich scion who had a lavish lifestyle but did not think he needed to pay his taxes like other Americans do. And Biden Jr has pleaded not guilty.

It is alleged that from 2016 to 2019 Hunter schemed not to pay $1.4 million in income tax. Prosecutors claim he made over $7 million in that period and splurged on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes”. Could a politician’s wayward son only have done this? Well, luckily for Biden and the US media, the California jurors will not be Indians!

The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.