Hunter Biden has been a terrible distraction for President Biden and the Democrats. He has been in the news for a long time, going back to former President Trump's first impeachment.
There's very little the public does not know about Hunter - and nearly everything is that of someone who is an abject failure. His discharge from the Navy, his relationship with his late brother's wife, the involvement with prostitutes, lying on the gun form, drug use, and fathering of a child to whom he refused to pay child support - all speak of a quite flawed character.
His business dealings, in which he allegedly took advantage of the Biden family name and received millions in compensation for access to Washington, while terrible, are nothing new. (The Beltway crowd is made up of tens of thousands of people who have connections because of family - in the three branches of government and the media.)
In effect, Hunter Biden is a classic story of political power and corruption, but if the GOP wants to beat President Biden in the coming elections using this theme, the rest of the country will yawn. For decades, those inside the Beltway have lived by a core set of values different from the rest of Middle America, especially in the battleground states where the 2024 elections will be decided.
Recent attacks by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, when she displayed salacious photos of Hunter Biden in the House chamber, went over the top. What was she trying to prove? That Hunter was a distorted and weak individual? No. Green showed the world that he may have violated an obscure law called the Mann Act of 1910, which made it a crime to transport women across state lines "for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." Is this the best the GOP will run on in 2024?
Although we are mostly willing to look the other way regarding Hunter Biden, two stories in the saga are noteworthy because they affect the very fabric of America - and both point to President Biden's dishonesty and hypocrisy. We believe pursuing inquiries into both are fair game for the GOP.
The first is when the Democrats leveraged their new-found unity in early 2020 to apply all the powers of the Deep State to suppress the Hunter laptop story - including when over 50 intelligence officials certified that the laptop was a ‘Russian misinformation’ campaign. During the 2020 presidential debates - remember that only two were held, with one being canceled - Biden openly referred to the intelligence officials' assessment.
In response to Trump's taunts of "it's the laptop from hell, the laptop from hell," Biden pushed back, "There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this — he's accusing me of is a Russian plan — they have said that this has all the characteristics — four — five former heads of the CIA — both parties, say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him…and his good friend Rudy Giuliani."
Biden's assertions were a bold lie. Not only do we now know that the laptop story was 100% accurate, but we also know that those officials unethically colluded with the Biden campaign. The GOP-led House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees released a 64-page report in May that showed emails from the intelligence officials who released a signed statement before the debate: "We think Trump will attack Biden on the issue at this week's debate, and we want to offer perspectives on this from Russia watchers and other seasoned experts, and we want to give the [Vice President] a talking point to use in response." This collusion story resonates across the country as election interference of the highest order as the Deep State pressed its thumb on the scale to swing the result to one candidate.
The second issue is if "The Big Guy'' received kickbacks from Hunter Biden's dealings and those somehow influenced American policy, such as towards Ukraine, including expending over $120 billion in arms support and forever dividing the world.
The average American will be repulsed if these stories are true. It does not matter if Justice again slow-walks investigations and even buries them, not indicting President Biden. As we said this week, the Court of Public Opinion is a powerful platform, and Biden can never survive the adverse reaction of the people if the kickback story further takes shape. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy knows that this story has legs, which is why he indicated again on Tuesday, after doing so over the weekend, that he could launch an impeachment inquiry.
All other Hunter Biden stories are noise - and the more the GOP defines Hunter as a deeply-disturbed individual, the more the average voter will see that the GOP is desperate. An emergency brief filed in Federal District Court in Wilmington by Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the House Ways, and Means Committee chairman, requesting the judge to scuttle the plea deal is an example of sheer desperation. Hunter is not running for office - so if the court accepts his plea deal, the GOP should let Hunter go and not take off the eye from the bigger picture.
There's so much more the GOP can prosecute President Biden for in taking America backward by decades - inflation, economy, war, standing in the world, executive outreach, crime, the borders, foreign policy, woke agenda, and dangerously rising debt - that Hunter's sorry story pales in comparison.
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