As I returned to my regular posting duties here this week, I noticed a headline that was rather unexpected. (Apologies for the absence but I finally caught the ‘Rona. Much better now, though.) The surprise news, at least to me, was that Joe Biden actually said something about his wayward son, Hunter Biden. As most of you have likely heard, rumors have been swirling about the long arm of the law finally catching up to the noted fan of crack whores and foreign influence shoppers. Credit for getting the President to comment on his family’s black sheep goes to CNN’s Jake Tapper, who asked about potential charges against Hunter involving tax fraud and lying on a gun permit application. The “Big Guy” quickly defended his offspring, saying that he had gotten himself into some trouble, but was now on the straight and narrow. He also didn’t think there was anything to the gun charges, though he didn’t really seem to understand the specifics of the question. (NY Post)

CNN host Jake Tapper asked Biden to give his first public response to reporting last week by the Washington Post that the FBI believes there’s enough evidence to charge Hunter, 52, with tax fraud and lying on a gun-purchase form by denying his drug use.

“Personally and politically, how do you react to that?” Tapper asked Biden, whose own involvement in his family’s overseas dealings will be a top focus of Republicans if they retake Congress in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

“Well, first of all, I’m proud of my son. This is a kid who got, not a kid — he’s a grown man. He got hooked on — like many families have had happen, hooked on drugs. He’s overcome that. He’s established a new life,” the president told Tapper.

It’s only natural for a father to take the side of his child, so it’s not hard to understand this sort of reaction. That’s particularly true when it comes to a child who becomes addicted to drugs. That tragically happens to more families than can be counted, so it’s easy to understand, despite the very public nature of all of Hunter’s misadventures with crack whores and ill-advised selfies.

As far as the gun charge goes, while seeming to dismiss the idea, Biden also said he “didn’t know anything about it.” He then said that Hunter had lied about using drugs when applying for a gun permit and he “wrote about saying no in his book.”

I’ll even cut the Biden’s some slack on that one. Technically, Hunter Biden obviously lied on his permit application when denying that he used illegal drugs, and you’re not supposed to do that. But how many other people fudge on that answer and never get caught unless they either get busted or wind up on the front page of every tabloid in the country? If Hunter Biden had lied about having a felony conviction or something else of that nature it would have been a much bigger deal.

But neither the drug use nor the lie on the permit application are really the big ticket items when it comes to what the feds have supposedly been investigating, but not yet pressing charges for against the First Son. For example, there is the two million in taxes on “foreign consulting income” that Hunter failed to pay. (Though a Hollywood attorney recently paid the debt off, that doesn’t get him off the hook for not paying initially.) Plenty of wealthy and influential people have wound up behind bars for less.

The real scandal, however, is the aforementioned “foreign consulting.” The idea that the Justice Department couldn’t make the case that Hunter was selling access to his father for foreign clients in China and Ukraine seems laughable. That’s also a felony, by the way.

And yet, nothing seems to be happening in terms of bringing charges on those far more serious alleged offenses. (And do we really need to keep saying “alleged” at this point?) The bottom line, at least for now, is that the Justice Department may have decided that failing to do something about Hunter was simply too embarrassing to continue. So they may go for the low-hanging fruit that won’t get the wayward son into too much trouble while being able to claim that “nobody is above the law” and they “did something” about it.

We’ll close with this entry from Jonathan Turley. He describes the “controlled implosion” of the Hunter Biden scandal and how these charges are really the best-case scenario for the Biden clan. And the big-ticket items will once again be conveniently ignored until the midterm elections are safely behind them. (And probably long after that.)

…Those charges may be the best-case scenario for the Bidens—and many others in Washington. Indeed, the reported narrow scope of the indictment is strikingly similar to what I previously described as the ideal “controlled demolition” of the scandal. https://t.co/WwoRzM2Qxm

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) October 8, 2022