Ultimately, it is a positive sign that justice is finally being served in the sordid case of Hunter Biden, but the idea that this is proof positive that justice remains impartial in America says more about the media than anything else.
Hunter Biden’s conviction on felony gun charges earlier this week immediately prompted the mainstream media to declare that the justice system in America is alive and well. CNN’s Stephen Collinson, for example, claimed that “Hunter Biden’s conviction shatters Trump’s persecution narrative.” As he described it, “An unprecedented two weeks of legal drama that yielded historic convictions of a former president and a sitting president’s son have also produced a clear political takeaway. The survival of the rule of law in America and untainted justice may depend on the choice voters make in November.” If there was any doubt which candidate Mr. Collinson believes represents this rule of law, he proceeded to insist that “Biden made no effort to interfere in the prosecution of his son Hunter with either his executive authority or with the media megaphone of his office. He allowed his own Justice Department to secure a guilty verdict Tuesday that could result in jail time for the recovering addict and hurt his own 2024 campaign.” “I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal,” President Biden said after the verdict. This is true, however, only if you studiously avoid considering anything and everything that occurred before the indictment and subsequent trials. Observers with just slightly longer memories will necessarily recall that Hunter wasn’t supposed to be charged with these crimes at all if the Justice Department had its way. There was, in fact, a now mysteriously forgotten plea deal negotiated by our supposedly impartial Justice Department in 2023 that had no felony charges of any kind. At the time, Hunter’s exposure was reduced to merely two misdemeanors for failure to pay $100,000 in taxes. To the extent guns were mentioned at all, it was only to wipe the (uncharged) charges from his record if he adhered to the terms of the agreement. There was also a bizarre future immunity clause that was considered highly unusual if not unprecedented. In other words, Hunter would have faced no felony charges if the judge presiding over the case, Maryellen Noreika, had not intervened and rejected the deal. “It seems to me like you are saying ‘just rubber stamp the agreement, Your Honor.’ … This seems to me to be form over substance,” she said. As the Associated Press described it, “The collapsed proceedings were a surprising development in the years long investigation, and a resolution that had been carefully negotiated over several weeks and included a lengthy back-and-forth between Justice Department prosecutors and Biden’s attorneys.”
Back then, even the Associated Press was reasonable enough to characterize this as an effort by the Justice Department to “clear the air for Hunter Biden and avert a trial,” suggesting there was a concerted effort from these supposedly impartial parties to avoid “distracting headlines.” There was every reason to believe this was the case because the plea deal collapsed only after multiple whistleblowers came forward detailing how the Justice Department had biased the “years long” investigation in favor of the defendant. PBS News’ Hour reported on these allegations, “A pair of IRS whistleblowers testified before the House Oversight Committee about alleged meddling in the Justice Department investigation of Hunter Biden.” Lisa Desjardins characterized the hearing in the House of Representatives on the matter as “a long and, for the most part, substantive and serious hearing from both sides. These were not just any IRS agents. These were two IRS investigators who were the chief two investigators in the Hunter Biden case. They gave a list of things that they said were out of the norm, unprecedented obstacles and changes in the way that this case worked.” These concerns included being denied a request to search the Biden family home (while he was not in office), being blocked from interviewing President Biden’s grandchildren who could have provided insight on potential tax crimes, the failure to act on felony tax charges until after the statute of limitations has run out, and rampant interference with the lead prosecutor, David Weiss’ efforts. Of particular interest was the testimony of Joseph Ziegler, who described himself as a “gay Democrat” with no political interest in the case. “It appeared to me,” he testified, “based on what I experienced, that the U.S. attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited, and marginalized by DOJ officials, as well as other U.S. attorneys.” This included how the investigative team became scared to ask questions that might lead to Biden’s family or his campaign.
Fortunately or unfortunately, none of this should have been surprising following the events surrounding the emergence of Hunter’s laptop late in the 2020 campaign. Despite an explosion of misinformation to label the laptop Russian disinformation – including collusion with the Central Intelligence Agency – and limit its exposure on social media, The New York Post reported as early as October 2020 that the FBI had been in possession of these materials for almost a full year. Given that Hunter was convicted based on events that occurred in 2018 and the laptop contained salacious photos of him engaging in illicit acts with both drugs and prostitutes, why did it take seven years to charge him with an incredibly straightforward crime, one which they attempted to not to charge at all until the plea deal fell apart? Putting this another way, can anyone cite some other example where the FBI tread so slowly and lightly in a way the mainstream media described as an attempt to “clear the air?” The tax crimes that were not charged as felonies in the original plea deal were also way, way past their sell-by date, having occurred in 2016. Meaning, this supposedly impartial Department of Justice delayed justice on not one but two obvious crimes for years and would have done so forever given the generous terms of the deal – until multiple whistleblowers came forward to testify in public, under oath about what was really going on behind the scenes. At the time, Mr. Ziegler called for the appointment of a special counsel, “I still think that a special counsel is necessary for this investigation,” but no one believed that would happen. Ms. Desjardins said, “There’s no reason to believe there will be a special counsel in this,” but after Judge Noreika rejected the plea deal, the Justice Department was forced to act. They could either simply let the matter lapse – a politically untenable situation given the rejection of the plea deal and the whistleblower’s revelations – or finally appoint a special counsel. Attorney General Merrick Garland chose the only politically palatable option and did just that on August 11, 2023, but even then his decision on who would actually be the special counsel was bizarre. Rather than pick someone new to lead this phase of the investigation and reconsider all that hadn’t been considered, he chose the same prosecutor that had previously refused to charge Hunter with any of these crimes and instead negotiated the sweetheart plea deal. “On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Weiss advised me that in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a Special Counsel, and he asked to be so appointed,” explained Attorney General Garland. “Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as Special Counsel. This appointment confirms my commitment to provide Mr. Weiss all the resources he requests. It also reaffirms that Mr. Weiss has the authority he needs to conduct a thorough investigation and to continue to take the steps he deems appropriate independently, based only on the facts and the law.”
It’s as if a football team’s quarterback was caught taking bribes from the opposing team, only to be promoted to captain, but that’s not all as they say. In September, Hunter is also due to stand trial for several assorted tax charges after spending frivolously 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,” as the indictment described it. The charges include six misdemeanor 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, stemming from activity occurring between 2016 and 2020, a period in which a convicted crackhead made some $7 million and would also have been magically wiped away by the plea bargain. This is by far the more interesting of the two cases, but not because of what Hunter is actually charged with. Rather, it’s for two things that are studiously missing from the indictment. First, most of this money flowed in from foreign sources through almost thirty shell companies while Hunter wasn’t properly registered as a foreign lobbyist or lawfully authorized to engage in these transactions. Putting this another way, there is a completely unanswered and largely ignored question about how Hunter made this money in the first place. Who was paying him and for what? Second, at least some of these funds flowed to other members of the Biden family, including the President himself via shared bank accounts and supposed “loan repayments.” In other words, the tax returns and the income sources of the entire family should – if justice were truly impartial – be subject to investigation, as the whistleblowers indicated last year. No one truly believes this to be the case, however, and given Mr. Weiss has a long history of steadfastly refusing to consider these matters, there is no reason to believe he has done so since being appointed special counsel. This is even as normally Biden-friendly publications, such as Politico, are finally starting to figure out that there’s something potentially fishy about the large amount of money changing various hands and who these hands actually are. “For years,” they began, “Joe Biden shared a bookkeeper with his son, Hunter. He also shared a personal lawyer with his brother, Jim. And when Jim Biden wanted to know more about one of Hunter Biden’s associates, he hired the former head of Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail to investigate.” Though the President himself has denied this incestuous relationship, “Many of the president’s closest staffers and advisers have doubled as his relatives’ business associates, both during and after their stints working for the man at the center of the Biden family orbit.” Further, “Those overlaps reflect an all-in-the family approach to business and politicking that dates back a half-century to the president’s first Senate bid, run primarily by his parents and siblings. Since then, his political patrons have at times forged business ties with his relatives, who in turn have converted some of their business partners into campaign supporters. And over a lifetime in public life, some of the president’s aides have taken on roles as surrogate members of the tight-knit Biden clan.”
Strangely, neither the Justice Department nor much of the mainstream media has expressed any interest in these relationships or how President Biden might’ve benefited from them, a situation that doesn’t seem likely to change when that same Justice Department is actively protecting the President from the output of another special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents. Earlier this year, Special Counsel Robert Hur determined that the President wasn’t likely to be convicted by a jury because of his “diminished faculties and faulty memory” based on a series of interviews. These interviews were recorded and a transcript has been released, but though it is clearly material to the decision making process of the Special Counsel, certainly in the public’s interest, and not protected by any known legal standard, the Justice Department has adamantly refused to release the actual recording. Even after the House of Representatives held Attorney General Garland in criminal contempt of Congress, the Justice Department bizarrely claimed that he cannot be prosecuted because of executive privilege. “An internal Justice Department (DOJ) memo argued Attorney General Merrick Garland would be protected from prosecution for contempt of Congress given President Biden’s assertion of executive privilege over audio tapes Republicans have sought by subpoena. The 57-page memo from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), obtained by The Hill, lays out the case for Garland’s refusal to turn over the audio of Biden’s conversation with special counsel Robert Hur. The GOP already has a transcript of the interview. The OLC, which operates as a legal adviser for the department, wrote that no administration official has been prosecuted for failing to comply with a subpoena when the president has claimed executive privilege.” This is a claim that makes no sense – executive privilege has traditionally been seen as protecting the President’s conversations with his advisors. To my knowledge, no one has asserted it related to an investigation by a Special Counsel with potential criminal implications. It is impossible to believe the same courtesy would be extended to former President Trump, especially when President Biden has already taken the unprecedented step to waive his predecessor’s privileges whenever it was politically convenient, meaning the privileges that protect Biden do not apply to his opponent. Ultimately, it is a positive sign that justice is finally being served in the sordid case of Hunter Biden, but the idea that this is proof positive that justice remains impartial in America says more about the media than anything else. A truly blind-folded lady justice should not need to be dragged kicking and screaming to prosecute straight forward crimes in one instance while actively creating new, completely novel crimes, for which no one has ever been charged in this fashion, in another.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 