President Joe Biden’s Hunter Biden dilemma grows

As jury choice in Hunter Biden’s gun possession trial started on Monday, his father launched an announcement that illustrated the high quality line he’s attempting to stroll within the midst of his re-election marketing campaign.

“I’m the president, however I’m additionally a dad,” stated Joe Biden.

His assertion goes on to precise assist for his son, who may withstand 25 years in jail for allegedly mendacity about his drug dependancy when filling out background paperwork for a 2018 handgun buy.

“As president, I don’t and gained’t touch upon pending federal circumstances,” he continues. “However as a dad, I’ve boundless love for my son, confidence in him and respect for his power.”

Hunter Biden’s struggles with drug dependancy are frequent information at this level. He has mentioned them publicly and written about them in his memoir – revelations that may quickly act as proof in his trial and fodder for public consumption.

Joe Biden has beforehand publicly addressed his son’s tumultuous private life. Within the first presidential debate with Donald Trump in 2020, he stated he was “proud” of his solely surviving son.

“My son, like lots of people you recognize at house, had a drug drawback,” he stated. “He’s overtaken it. He’s mounted it. He’s labored on it.”

4 years in the past, President Biden was responding to Trump’s assaults on the talk stage. Now, nonetheless, his assertion might be an try to defuse what’s shaping as much as be a politically fraught second, the place his son’s troubled previous – and, by extension, that of the whole Biden household – will probably be on full show.

Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, is predicted to testify about her former husband’s drug behavior. Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter Biden’s brother Beau – with whom Hunter would later be romantically concerned and who discarded the handgun in query in a Delaware trash can – can be on the prosecution’s checklist of witnesses.

“It’s undoubtedly not a great look,” says Kate Andersen Brower, who has written a number of books on US presidents, their households and first women. She says presidents have needed to cope with household turmoil prior to now. Invoice Clinton and Jimmy Carter confronted sibling embarrassments, as an example.

For a president’s youngster to face a prison trial is totally unprecedented, nonetheless, and it has left the elder Biden strolling a tightrope.

He frolicked together with his son in Delaware this weekend, and he stayed in Wilmington – the place the trial will happen – on Sunday night time. Throughout jury choice on Monday, the Biden household was effectively represented.

However the president had already returned to Washington by then. Whereas he has famous his assist for his son, he’s additionally holding his distance from the case itself.

However First Woman Jill Biden attended and sat behind Hunter. The 2 embraced throughout a morning break in courtroom proceedings and once more after the day concluded. She was joined by Hunter’s present spouse, Melissa Cohen Biden – who held his hand as he walked out of courtroom – and his half-sister, Ashley Biden, and her husband.

Jill Biden married the president after his first spouse, Hunter Biden’s mom, died in a 1972 automotive accident by which Hunter and Beau had been injured. The accident additionally took the lifetime of their toddler sister, Naomi.

The president recurrently speaks concerning the closeness of his household – and has made this devotion a part of his political identification.

He talks about how he would take the prepare house from Washington to Delaware every night time as a US senator so he may say goodnight to his kids. He wrote a guide about coping with grief following Beau Biden’s loss of life from mind most cancers in 2016 and has mentioned the emotional trauma he skilled within the aftermath of his first spouse’s passing.

Now, the extra tawdry elements of the Biden household story will probably be on public show, akin to textual content messages between Hunter Biden and his household – together with intimate communication with Beau’s widow.

There will even be images and different particulars of Hunter Biden’s crack cocaine use. A few of that was probably gleaned from laptop computer pc, whose existence and contents grew to become a controversial a part of the ultimate days of the 2020 presidential election.

The Hunter Biden trial comes on the heels of one of many greatest tales of the 2024 presidential election to this point – Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying enterprise information. Whereas the 2 circumstances are considerably totally different – costs towards a candidate versus a candidate’s son – the rhythm of the 2 trials will unavoidably result in comparisons.

On the very least, the eye centered on the Biden household drama, and Hunter Biden’s authorized troubles, will shift the media focus from Trump. And the authorized points surrounding his son may make Mr Biden extra reluctant to lean in to assaults on Trump’s prison conviction.

It might even be a major distraction for the president heading into the final marketing campaign of his political profession.

“It’s going to be very troublesome on a private stage for Biden,” Brower says. “He has expertise attempting to wall off his private life from his public life, however it’s his solely residing son. It’s received to be very taxing.”

There’s one other approach Hunter Biden’s authorized drama differs from Trump’s. The previous president’s three different prison circumstances will in all probability not occur earlier than November’s election.

Hunter Biden, nonetheless, can be beneath indictment on federal tax costs, with a trial scheduled for September.

That case, coping with an alleged failure to pay not less than $1.4m in taxes over 4 years, is likely to be extra politically damaging for the president, on condition that it includes monetary crimes quite than ones linked to his drug dependancy.

“Tax evasion is far more durable to make excuses about,” says Bower.

If Hunter Biden is convicted in both federal trial, it’s inside his father’s presidential energy to pardon him.

Such a transfer would have been politically poisonous prior to now, however Trump exercised his pardon authority for a slew of controversial figures who labored for him and appears to have paid little worth for it.

Whereas that’s an motion that Joe Biden the dad would possibly discover interesting – he has insisted his son is harmless – the White Home has insisted it’s not into account.