Hunter Biden‘s Delaware gun trial is bringing into focus President Joe Biden‘s stalwart defense of the Department of Justice ahead of the 2024 general election in November.
Joe Biden entered office in 2021 vowing not to weaponize the Justice Department against his political allies, as he has accused former President Donald Trump of doing in the past.
But his son’s gun trial, the first of two federal trials Hunter Biden will face before November, could test that commitment and complicate his campaign against Trump, who was convicted in the New York hush money case on 34 counts last week. Hunter Biden is the first child of a sitting president to become a criminal defendant.
Multiple veteran Democratic strategists told the Washington Examiner that they don’t expect Hunter Biden’s legal issues to move the needle come November, nor do they expect Joe Biden to utilize executive authority to save his son if found guilty in either matter.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denied that Joe Biden would pardon Hunter Biden last year during a press briefing, saying that she has been “very clear” that the president would not do so.
Joe Biden, White House staff, and campaign officials seek to avoid discussing Hunter Biden’s charges, but the president has publicly discussed how difficult it is to watch his son be tried in the court of public opinion, repeatedly defended his innocence, and said he is proud to be Hunter Biden’s father.
“It impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him,” Joe Biden said during a 2023 interview with MSNBC when asked about his son’s legal problems.
First lady Jill Biden, alongside Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and his sister, Ashley Biden, all attended Monday’s proceedings in Wilmington.
The president did not visit the courthouse alongside his family but released an uncharacteristic statement just after jury selection began on Monday.
“I am the president, but I am also a Dad,” Joe Biden wrote in a statement Monday morning. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. Hunter’s resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us. A lot of families have loved ones who have overcome addiction and know what we mean.”
Just days prior, the president castigated Trump for claiming that his guilty verdict in a New York hush money trial was “rigged.”
“Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself,” Joe Biden said Friday. “It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”
Special counsel David Weiss reportedly plans to call a dozen witnesses to testify in the gun trial, including three former partners of the first son: his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, Lunden Roberts, with whom the younger Biden has a daughter, and Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter Biden’s brother, Beau Biden.
Hallie Biden was involved in a romantic relationship with Hunter Biden after Beau Biden’s death, and she is believed to be the person who disposed of the firearm at the heart of Hunter Biden’s trial.
Furthermore, the prosecution will reportedly submit Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, itself a lightning rod for controversy during the 2020 election, as evidence. Joe Biden and his allies repeatedly claimed in 2020 that the laptop was misinformation planted by Trump’s team to influence the results of that election, but those claims were independently debunked after Joe Biden entered office.
One Democratic operative familiar with Joe Biden’s campaign team told the Washington Examiner that it will be difficult for the president to have his family’s dirty laundry reexamined in the public sphere but that it would not shake the elder Biden’s commitment to the rule of law.
“Of course this will be painful. This would be tough for any father, let alone one who has to face questions from reporters every day,” that person assessed. “But this isn’t new. The media and Republicans have dragged the Biden family through the mud for nearly a decade now, and President Biden is stronger than you want to give him credit for. I expect him to support his son through the process but ultimately respect the verdict.”
Still, Hunter Biden’s own public statements could make things difficult for the president. Like Trump, Hunter Biden has claimed that his prosecution is politically motivated, citing that both Weiss and Judge Maryellen Noreika, who will preside over the gun trial, were appointed by the former president to serve in Delaware.
“They are trying to, in their most illegitimate way, but rational way, they’re trying to destroy a presidency,” he claimed in a 2023 interview. “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to kill me, knowing that it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle and so therefore destroying a presidency in that way.”
Despite the negative connotations, the president has kept his son close in recent weeks.
Hunter Biden attended a state dinner for the visiting Kenyan president in May, memorialized the ninth anniversary of his brother, Beau, last week with the rest of the Biden family, and joined his father for a bike ride over the weekend.