That The concrete effect Hunter Biden’s conviction will have on the current race for the White House is still a matter of debate. For decades now, his case has been weighing like an enormous burden on the life of the current American president and the rest of his family.
According to the criteria of
Hunter, the second son of current US President Joe Biden with his first wife, was found guilty last week of lying on an official form required for the purchase of a firearm when answering negatively to a question about addiction or drug use.
Under US law, a person cannot legally acquire these types of devices if they are a habitual user of illicit substances. While Hunter’s history of addiction has been well documented – both he and his father have admitted it repeatedly and very publicly – the process centered on whether at the time of the purchase, in late 2018, he was using actively.
Something that was very clear, at least before the juries, by the testimonies given by people very close to the presidential family. Several of his ex-girlfriends narrated in painful detail the spiral in which Hunter was at that time consuming large amounts of crack, cocaine and alcohol.
Although the president’s son had been addicted to these substances for years, and had already gone through several rehabilitation centers, his consumption increased after the death of Beau, his older brother, in 2015.
As recalled, Beau and Hunter were the only survivors of a traffic accident in which both the president’s first wife, Neilia Biden, and his youngest daughter Naomi, who was only one year old, perished.
After the death of his first-born, Hunter ended up in an extramarital relationship with Hallie, his deceased brother’s wife. AND It was she who found the illegally purchased weapon and her testimony that ended up sinking him.
The sentence that Hunter Biden could receive
The trial judge, Maryellen Noreika, has not given a definitive date for the reading of the sentence. But This is expected to be known in October, just weeks before the presidential elections scheduled for November 5.
The three charges against him, for lying on the form and for illegal possession of a firearm, provide a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. But, since Hunter does not have a criminal record, there is talk of between 12 or 24 months, which could be converted into house arrest and probation.
A punishment, in any case, embarrassing and that makes him the first son of a United States president to be convicted of a crime and at the worst possible moment for his father’s political interests.
That, however, is just one of the headaches Hunter is causing his father. In September of this year, in fact, Hunter will have to face a second trial in California for tax evasion.
According to this accusation, Biden did not report to the treasury the income of more than one million dollars that he obtained from his work in various companies abroad. If found guilty – something that will also be known in the final stretch of this campaign for the Oval Office – he could be sentenced to more years in prison and fines.
The tax evasion case is related to another that has been exploited by Republicans for years to attack Biden and his family.
The funds come from companies in Ukraine and China, which hired Hunter when his father was vice president of the United States under Barack Obama. The argument has always been that the companies put him on the payroll to gain influence in the then-White House.
In fact, The impeachment trial that Republicans have tried to mount against Biden over the last year and a half emanates from this period. Investigations, to date, have shown that the current president never received a peso from his son or from those companies and nor did he make decisions to benefit them.
Which is why the process – which is stalled in Congress due to a lack of evidence – has always been seen as a political strategy to weaken it despite Hunter’s questionable decision in trying to take economic advantage of his political connections, albeit legally. there was no impediment.
How will Hunter Biden’s conviction weigh on the campaign?
Although none of the three cases – the gun, tax evasion and his relationship with foreign companies – involve the current president, Hunter’s legal entanglements are a black cloud over the president’s head. Or, at least, that’s what its rivals claim.
True or not, it gives the impression that there is something corrupt and that could sway some voters
According to Dave Carney, a political strategist associated with the Republican Party, Hunter’s case reflects poorly on Biden’s resume even if the crimes were committed by his son.
“True or not, it gives the impression that there is something corrupt and that could sway some voters. It also allows us to neutralize the attacks against Donald Trump for his own entanglements with the law,” says Carney.
The former president, Biden’s rival in these elections, has just been convicted of hiding payments to a porn film actress to prevent him from telling the story of an alleged extramarital relationship and, as is known, he has other pending charges for trying to interfere in the result of the 2020 elections.
The cases, of course, are different. While Hunter Biden is the story of a wayward son whose adventures don’t necessarily involve his father, The accusations against Trump are direct and affect his image as a future leader.
That said, Carney emphasizes, The conviction of the president’s son softens – in a certain way – the idea that Trump is a criminal unfit to serve as president. “Trump may be corrupt, but so are others. “This idea takes away from the Democrats a weapon that they intended to use during the rest of the campaign,” says the analyst.
Trump may be corrupt, but so are others. That idea takes away a weapon from Democrats.
The other side of the coin, says Rob Stuzman, another political analyst, is that the verdict nullifies the Republican thesis that Democrats have been using the judicial system to attack Trump.
“It is not easy to allege that Biden is using the Department of Justice to persecute Trump when his own son was investigated and now convicted by that same department and the judicial apparatus,” Stuzman notes.
In addition, it is worth noting, the Hunter case exposes the sharp differences that exist in the handling that both parties have given it. Biden has already said, for example, that no one is above the law and that he will not use his presidential power to commute the sentence of his son.
The Republicans – and Trump -, for their part, are in a frontal war against the administration of justice and threaten to use it, if they come to power, to take revenge on their rivals.
In any case, maintains Democratic analyst Peter Giangreco, The real effect of the verdict against Hunter on the campaign will be very marginal.
“Among the ‘Trumpists’ the sentence vindicates what they have already been saying. But I don’t think anyone will stop going to the polls or change their vote for Hunter Biden. I also believe that the voters are clear that it is Biden and not his son who is asking for another four years,” says Giangreco.
In addition, he affirms, there is a certain empathy for the Bidens’ drama since there are many who have had to deal with the effects of an addiction in the family unit.
For this analyst, Trump, on the other hand, has more to lose because his conviction directly muddies him and perhaps that influences the vote of independents and moderate conservatives.
Nobody, of course, knows for sure. Less so in a campaign as explosive as the current one, which still has five months to go. It will dawn and we will see.
SERGIO GÓMEZ MASERI – EL TIEMPO Correspondent – Washington
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