Hunter Biden could use better lawyers. Or at least a better legal strategy.
If he doesn’t reverse course, the First Son could find himself headed to the hoosegow.
It’s hard to make sense of Hunter Biden’s senseless new strategy to tell congress to stuff it. But it is part of a paradigm of brazen intimidation designed to delay, deflect, and shift blame. Shrinks will tell you that it’s a classic manipulative method employed by narcissistic people caught committing acts of wrongdoing. They are allergic to assuming responsibility, so they lie and gaslight to avoid accountability.
Recently, Hunter’s newly constituted team of high-priced attorneys threatened his critics in the media with defamation. That idea deflated faster than an exploding Chinese balloon.
It was a frivolous tactic that no one took seriously. After all, Hunter managed to sully his own reputation. Big time. He recorded images of himself smoking crack, snorting lines of coke, posing naked, performing sex acts with prostitutes, and cooking up all manner of greedy schemes to profit off his dad. It’s all there on his laptop, which eventually went viral.
Suffice it to say that Hunter has no good name to damage. It cannot be tarnished or soiled further. Under the law, he is slander-proof. Moreover, truth is a complete defense to defamation. So, that foolish ploy by his lawyers is dead as a doornail.
Hunter’s legal team then demanded that his father’s own Justice Department and other government cronies criminally investigate and prosecute those who “stole” his laptop (which, as we all know, was abandoned, not stolen.) Within hours, his lawyers insisted that it might not be their client’s laptop at all. That mangled rationale was roundly mocked as verbal vomit and a desperate attempt to use nepotism as a means to obstruct justice.
Undeterred, Hunter’s legal team is now refusing to turn over records and communications held by the president’s son that were requested by the House Oversight Committee. The First Son’s lead lawyer Abbe Lowell, who is a prolific donor to Democrats, claims his notorious client is perfectly entitled to defy congress because the committee’s probe “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose and oversight basis.”
Okay…stop laughing, and I’ll try to explain the folly of his tortured logic.
There are several reason’s why Lowell’s defiance is fundamentally wrong. First —and quite obviously— the legitimacy of a congressional investigation is not determined by the opinion of a target witness. Hunter’s derogatory view of the committee’s work is irrelevant and immaterial. It falls under the category of “who gives a damn what you think?”
Second, the oversight duty of congress to uncover government corruption is a well-recognized right that derives from its vesting powers in Article I of the Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court long ago declared that such power is essential to the legislative function. It dates back to the first Congresses. Committees have penetrating authority and far-reaching power to force witnesses to testify and to produce documents. Period.
Third, there is more than enough evidence established thus far to justify a “legitimate legislative purpose” for the committee to investigate further. Documents, emails, text messages, bank records, visitor logs, photographs, and witness statements strongly suggest that Hunter Biden was selling access to his powerful father, along with promises of influence.
America’s foreign adversaries were his paying clients, and they paid handsomely. China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania —all the countries over which Joe exerted influence as Vice President. That was no coincidence. So much overseas cash flowed into Hunter’s accounts that U.S. banks flagged some 150 transactions as suspicious.
Oversight Committee chair, James Comer, noted that the evidence indicates the president himself was complicit in his son’s illicit schemes and that “national security may be compromised.” So, yes…an investigation is not just “legitimate,” it is imperative.
Congress can enforce its power to investigate by having a reluctant witness such as Hunter Biden prosecuted for noncompliance to a subpoena. Now that his attorney has rejected outright the committee’s written request for documents, the next step is a formal subpoena for Hunter’s records. If that, too, is ignored, then a vote would take place to hold him in criminal contempt of congress.
All of this can happen very quickly as former Trump aide, Steve Bannon, discovered when he was prosecuted and convicted for defying a congressional subpoena. A week later, congress voted to hold him in contempt. The Justice Department promptly filed criminal charges and his trial proceeded expeditiously.
Hence, unless Lowell immediately withdraws his phalanx strategy of resistance, he is putting his client at risk of conviction and imprisonment. One can only assume that Hunter is happily on board by accepting the risk and granting permission to roll the dice.
Why would he do that? Well…maybe he and his counsel are merely bluffing at the outset in their categorical refusal to comply. Perhaps they’ll soon sound the retreat and surrender the records. Don’t bet on it.
More likely, Hunter is counting on his dad to bail him out yet again. This has been a consistent pattern in his sordid life.
Here’s how his latest gambit goes. Joe Biden’s hand-picked attorney general, Merrick Garland, presides over the Department of Justice that would bring any such prosecution against the president’s son for contempt. Congress doesn’t prosecute; the DOJ does.
Hunter is likely calculating that Garland won’t bring a criminal case against his boss’s son. He’s hoping to exploit to his advantage the AG’s glaring conflict of interest and allegiance to his dad.
And why not? That same conflict has worked splendidly for the Bidens. How else do you explain a 5-year-old criminal investigation of Hunter that has mysteriously produced no indictment despite compelling evidence of criminality? The question answers itself. The fix is already in. Indeed, it appears embedded in cement. Garland has consistently refused to recuse himself despite federal regulations that require disqualification.
So, at this point, the Bidens may be asking themselves, “What’s one more cover-up in our elaborate protection racket helmed by our buddy, Garland?” They are relying on the AG’s refusal to prosecute.
President Joe Biden is highly motivated to run interference for his son because Hunter’s suspected corruption also implicates the father as both an active participant and secret beneficiary. The laptop, which everyone now concedes is authentic, constitutes a treasure trove of incriminating evidence of multi-million dollar influence peddling schemes.
As Comer said, “This not about Hunter Biden, it’s about Joe Biden.”
