Hunter Biden proves that American justice is not rigged after all

So much for the myth that the American justice system is “rigged.” The jury verdict finding Hunter Biden guilty on all counts in his gun case in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, is a blow to him, his father and Donald Trump.

Like Trump, Hunter Biden is discovering that his past is catching up with him.

The jury found Biden guilty of three federal gun-related charges, including lying about his drug addiction when purchasing a handgun in 2018 in Delaware.

He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000. Sentencing will take place in 120 days. Biden is unlikely to receive such a draconian sentence.

However, the fact that the jury found him guilty and that he faces another upcoming trial on tax charges in California indicates that further trouble awaits President Biden’s already troubled son.

Hunter Biden and the 2024 Elections: What Joe Biden Could Do

The case presents an opportunity for Joe Biden to distance himself from Trump, who will no doubt try to take advantage of the guilty verdict to portray Hunter as an integral part of a Biden crime family. Trump’s ambition is to blur the line between him and the Bidens and, in effect, suggest that he is the real victim.

But Biden can draw stark contrasts between himself and Trump. Biden has already said he will not pardon Hunter. He will surely also announce that he accepts the jury’s verdict. Unlike Trump, he did not rant about a witch hunt, or denigrate the judge, or defame the jury itself.

The verdict probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. The prosecution cleverly used Biden’s words against himself, including his confession in his 2021 memoir. Pretty Things that “all my energy was devoted to smoking drugs and arranging to buy them – to feeding the beast.” He fed the beast and it ended up devouring him.

The tragedy is of course not limited to Hunter. He took a swipe at Hallie Biden, his former girlfriend and wife of his older brother Beau. She gave a detailed account, so to speak, of his crack addiction, explaining that he bought it and smoked it before getting a handgun. Like Trump in Manhattan, Biden could do nothing but silently watch the narrative of his past transgressions.

However, like Trump, Biden did not engage in what amounted to an election cover-up. He engaged in what were peccadilloes – what the Catholic Church calls venial sins. But for Joe Biden, the verdict will be decisive

About the author: Jacob Heilbrunn

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He has written on foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington MonthlyAnd The weekly norm. He also wrote for German publications such as Cicero, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Der Tagesspiegel. In 2008, his book They knew they were right: the rise of the neoconservatives was published by Doubleday. It was named one of the Hundred Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times. He is the author of America Last: the right’s century-old romance with foreign dictators.

Image credit: Creative Commons.