Rule of law

US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has been indicted for illegal possession of a weapon after negotiations on a plea bargain failed. The younger Biden becomes the first child of a sitting president to have ever been indicted. The charges stem from a gun he bought in 2018. Hunter signed a federal form certifying that he was not using or addicted to any illegal drugs when he bought the Colt Cobra revolver, except he was very much addicted to crack cocaine, the most addictive form of the drug. Biden has admitted to a history of drug problems in his memoir, where he blames it on trauma from the 1972 car accident that killed his mother and sister, and left him and his brother fighting for their lives. He said he had overcome his addictions but relapsed after his brother Beau died of cancer in 2015.

Hunter has been a perennial problem child. Aside from his drug problem, there is strong evidence to suggest that he has long been profiting off his father’s name, from his very first job at a bank to his lobbying activities, to questionable appointments and transactions with companies linked to China, and corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs. Hunter had previously reached a deal that would have kept him from serving any jail time for the gun charges and a separate tax case, but that agreement collapsed on review from a federal judge who said it was unusually lenient.

Hunter and his allies claim the reopening of the cases is politically motivated because the judge is a Trump appointee, and Republicans have long been trying to blur the difference between Trump himself allegedly committing crimes against America and Joe Biden’s son’s addictions and alleged financial crimes. But whether or not this is true, for citizens of many countries — including Pakistan — it is stunning that the child of a sitting US president would face any charges at all. Here, having a parent in power makes all investigations and cases mysteriously vanish, at least temporarily.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th, 2023.

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