Days after Donald Trump became the first former and possibly future president to be convicted of a crime, President Joe Biden's son Hunter on Monday became the first child of a sitting president to go on trial.
'the President ... but also a dad' |
| | First lady Jill Biden walks into the courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday. |
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A new week brings another dubious presidential first.
Days after Donald Trump became the first former and possibly future president to be convicted of a crime, President Joe Biden's son Hunter on Monday became the first child of a sitting president to go on trial.
The president's sole surviving son is facing charges of illegally purchasing and possessing a gun while abusing or being addicted to drugs. He's pleaded not guilty and says he's now beaten his addictions.
The cases are in no way comparable given that Trump was personally accused of wrongdoing and Biden is not. But as the 2024 presidential election campaign quickens, the case has a strong political dimension. The trial will be an agonizing experience for the president as he prepares for his critical first debate with Trump at the end of the month and could be a distraction during two important trips to Europe in the next two weeks. The airing of the Biden family's most intimate secrets could also be an embarrassment.
Democrats accused special counsel David Weiss of caving to pressure from Republicans to put the president's son on trial, after failing to find in their impeachment probe that Biden profited from his son's business dealings in China and Ukraine when he was vice president. Certainly, top GOP lawmakers have tried to position Hunter Biden's plight as a counterpoint to Trump's multiple, more serious legal woes as they weave a tale about "the Biden crime family." Their implicit argument is that everyone is corrupt, so the former president's tsunami of legal threats shouldn't matter too much to voters.
The administration has sought to avoid suggestions of favoritism and some of Hunter Biden's supporters argue that he's been treated unfairly, as someone else might have escaped such public accountability. The president is said to be worried that the stress of the trial, or a possible jail sentence could send his son back into a cycle of addiction. It's another terrible twist for a president haunted by personal tragedy. His first wife and infant daughter died in a car crash in 1972, weeks after he became one of the youngest people ever elected to the Senate. And his grief over Beau, who died in 2015, is still raw. Biden has kept his son at his side despite complaints by some Republicans that it's inappropriate before a trial being conducted by his own Justice Department. Hunter is often seen on Air Force One, at the White House and was out biking with his father on Sunday on the Delaware coast. First lady Jill Biden attended the first day of the trial in Wilmington.
Biden said in a statement on Monday that he had "boundless" love for his son, but would not comment on federal cases. "I am the President but I am also a dad," he said. "Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today." |
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Mexico voted in its first female president: climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum. The Israel Defense Forces says four hostages being held in Gaza are "no longer alive." Ukraine claimed it hit a missile system inside Russian territory using Western weapons, days after US President Joe Biden approved using US-supplied weapons for limited strikes inside Russia. And pro-Russian propagandists are ramping up their efforts to denigrate next month's Paris Summer Olympics – including using artificial intelligence to impersonate the actor Tom Cruise. Meanwhile in America, Pentagon contracts revealed the minutiae of US involvement in planning for a foreign security mission to Haiti. An early "heat dome" is about to sear the western United States, with temperatures topping triple digits for the first time this year in some locations. And West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said he's "not running for any office" after his decision to leave Democratic Party. |
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Republicans are still fighting the last war on Covid-19 |
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene attacks Dr. Anthony Fauci at a hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. |
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Dr. Anthony Fauci has helped save millions of lives, especially with his pioneering work in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and in the global US plan to fight the disease, especially in Africa.
His history as a humanitarian was worth nothing on Monday as the 83-year-old endured heated attacks in a House committee by Republicans who revile him over Covid-19 restrictions and who see him as an enemy after he contradicted Trump's woeful management of the pandemic.
Many Republicans accuse Fauci of seeking to cover up their preferred theory that Covid-19 emerged from a virus manipulated in a Chinese laboratory. US intelligence agencies have differing views on the issue, and the government says there's no conclusive evidence either way. Most scientists believe that the virus jumped from animals to people at a market in Wuhan. Fauci said that he is keeping an open mind about the origins of the pandemic. But that not good enough for many Republicans who have a political incentive to blame China for the crisis as they seek to cover up Trump's botched leadership during the worst public health emergency in 100 years.
One of Trump's top supporters, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, refused to call a man who gave five decades of service to the US government "Dr."
"That man does not deserve to have a license. As a matter of fact, it should be revoked, and he belongs in prison," Greene said, accusing Fauci of making up masking recommendations in the early days of the pandemic in 2020. "You know what this committee should be doing? We should be recommending you to be prosecuted. We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity." It's no wonder that critics of Trump's cronies on Capitol Hill say that they are spending far too much time settling political scores over the last pandemic when they should be preparing for the next one. |
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| Thanks for reading. On Tuesday, Biden departs for France to mark the country's annual D-Day anniversary. And US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosts the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in Washington, DC. |
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