Who Is Hunter Biden And Why Do We Care?

I had not planned on writing a post about Hunter Biden. But while writing a post about the tragic tale of the Titan submersible going down, somehow Hunter Biden came up. 

So who the hell is Hunter Biden and why do we care?  

Hunter Biden is the second son of U.S. President Joe Biden. 

Hunter has endured a years long struggle with drug and alcohol abuse, This is not a major revelation. Hunter addresses his downward spiral in his memoir, Beautiful Things. His father has acknowledged his son's struggles as well.  

Hunter has held several jobs in his lifetime:  

• attorney
• businessman 
• artist 
• private-equity fund investor
• lobbyist
• banker
• public administration official 

The Hunter Biden job that has aroused the interest of right wing conspiracy nuts is membership on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine, from 2014 to 2019. Donald Trump and his allies frequently lob accusations that Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine were part of a tangled web of corruption. 

Do I need to say that these accusations are not accompanied bv even a smidgen of anything resembling hard evidence?

But that doesn't stop Trump from continuing to accuse Hunter Biden of being up to sketchy shit.  

So while President, Donald Trump had a special prosecutor tasked with the job of investigating Hunter Biden for... reasons?

Trump's take was "We know Hunter Biden is guilty of something. Now go find out what it is and whatever is, put him in jail for it."

Five years of digging into every nook and cranny of Hunter Biden's life by a Trump appointee to find something, anything he was guilty of and what was achieved by all these efforts?  

On June 20, 2023, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to the following: 

• Two misdemeanor tax charges for filing two years of his taxes late. Note that the charges were not about Hunter Biden not paying his taxes. He did pay them, he was late.
• He also agreed to plead guilty to "illegally owning a gun while a drug user", because he knowingly denied drug use when applying for a gun purchase permit. The gun was never used in the commission of a crime. Hunter simply had the gun and was not supposed to have it. 

Sorry, Li'l Donnie and your sniveling sycophants but nothing here to put Hunter Biden in jail or incriminate Joe Biden.

Which led to cries from the right wing nuts of Hunter Biden getting special treatment. 

And to a certain extent, Hunter Biden did get special treatment of a sort. But not from his dad or to his benefit. 

Hunter Biden did stuff that was wrong but in both cases, there is usually not this much attention to such minor charges. The IRS has too many people to chase down who aren't paying their taxes at all to expend effort to look for those who are paying but paying late. 

The FBI and the ATF have more than enough to do with guns being used for murder and mass shootings. 

In both cases, the authorities involved would have been more lenient or even looked the other way if the defendant was someone other than Hunter Biden. 

Donald Trump and his minions whine incessantly about the weaponization of government against Li'l Donnie to take out a political enemy.  But what transpired in the investigation is a testament that weaponization of government can happen. And Donald Trump and his minions made it happen.   

This is what Trump and his cronies represent, the abuse of power for one's own gain and the for the downfall of another. 

And this is why we need to care about this.