Will Hunter Biden walk?
No man may be above the law, as President Theodore Roosevelt once proclaimed, but sometimes somebody is, especially if you are President Joe Biden’s son or an illegal immigrant.
While it is certainly clear that Hunter Biden allegedly broke the law when he bought a .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver while possibly on crack cocaine, it does not mean that a jury in Wilmington, Del., will see it that way.
Wilmington may be the largest city in Delaware, but with a population of only 71,000, it is the same size as Framingham. It is essentially a large town where everybody knows everybody.
It is where Hunter Biden and his late brother Beau, a one-time Delaware attorney general, grew up during the years their father represented Delaware (population one million) in the Senate for years before later becoming vice president and then president.
Joe Biden has a home in Wilmington. Jill Biden, the First Lady and Hunter’s stepmother, was a high school teacher in Wilmington after graduating from the University of Delaware. She hovered over the trial.
Her appearance in federal court sitting behind Hunter during the trial was a not-so-subtle reminder to the jurors how they are all essentially Wilmington family, friends and neighbors.
And Joe Biden made it clear that as a father he was watching the case closely. In a statement he said, “I don’t and won’t comment on pending federal cases, but as a dad, I have boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength.”
He also visited Hallie Biden, Beau’s widow, who became Hunter’s lover, at her home just before she testified.
Several of the prospective jurors, struck from the jury, talked about personally knowing the Biden family. One retired cop told the Washington Post that he worked at the same school as Jill Biden and bumped into Joe Biden at events over the years.
A bartender said he served drinks to Hunter’s uncle Jim Biden at a Delaware bar, while a third said he had coached Beau Biden’s children in youth sports, while a woman said she knew Hunter and Hallie Biden socially.
The jury chosen is made up of six men and six women, including a former Secret Service agent, a teacher and several gun owners. All the jurors appeared to confirm knowing someone with a drug addiction problem.
While their privacy may be protected, it will not be long before all of Wilmington knows someone who is on the jury and how they voted.
Hunter, before what appears to be a sympathetic jury, has apparently thrown himself at their mercy by agreeing that he was so drugged out that he did not know what he was doing when he bought the gun.
Therefore, he should be pitied rather than punished, let alone sent to prison.
Hunter Biden was charged with two counts of making a false statement when he purchased the gun, and a third count of possessing a gun while on drugs.
This is the gun Hallie found in Hunter’s car. She took the gun and threw it in a dumpster behind a restaurant where it was later found by a dumpster diver who turned it over to the authorities.
Hunter also faces federal charges in California where he is accused of failing to file and pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 through 2019, as well as tax evasion and filing false tax returns.
However, the outcome of Hunter’s gun trial, coming so soon after the one-sided, politically tainted trial of Republican Donald Trump on flimsy charges in a Democrat controlled Manhattan courthouse, will have a major impact on the November presidential election.
A felony guilty verdict in Wilmington will go a long way toward restoring lost confidence in the American system of justice where we are all, supposedly, equal under the law.
It would show that, despite Trump, the U.S. justice system is not rigged, and that no man is above the law.
If Hunter walks, it will be a whole different story, showing that sometimes somebody, like Hunter Biden, is indeed above the law. And it just might help Trump walk back into the White House.
Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: [email protected]
