“Joe Biden is only guilty of being a loving father” — or so the official narrative goes.

Hunter Biden’s gun trial kicks off today, and the corporate media will be working overtime to paint a sympathetic picture. But here at the Daily Caller, we’re nothing if not slaves to the truth, so it’s well past time to clear up the record: Joe Biden is a shitty dad.

There’s only one approved way to think about the Biden family drama. It’s alright to admit that Hunter Biden is a mess— a drug addict and serial philanderer who, to varying degrees depending on whom you ask, took advantage of his father‘s powerful position for personal gain. But even Republicans won’t challenge the underlying assertion that Biden was always just a devoted father, sadly powerless to help his beloved son.

Now, in his heart of hearts, the president does love his son. “It’s dad, I called to tell you I love you,” says a distraught Biden in a leaked voicemail on Hunter’s phone. “You gotta get some help, I don’t know what to do.” But this was in 2018, after Biden had already done all the wrong things. He might love his son, but the record suggests he loves money and power so much more.

Let’s step back to the waning days of the Obama-Biden administration. Barack Obama was on his way out of the White House, but his control over the Democratic Party had never been stronger. He spent eight years staffing the federal government with bureaucrats who worshiped the ground he walked on and built a quasi-religious movement around himself as the embodiment of hope and change. The party’s platform reoriented beneath him, embracing his then-radical politics and taking it mainstream.

The one man who did not fit into the new paradigm was the aging, white Pennsylvanian who once worried about his children growing up “in a racial jungle.” Joe Biden was a useful vice presidential pick because he brought along the old blue dog Democratic base to complement Obama’s enthusiastic, but insufficient, coalition of minorities and young, affluent city dwellers. But when this “coalition of the ascendant” proved dominant in 2012, Democrats felt they could abandon the “bitter clingers” for good. Scranton Joe had finally outlived his usefulness.

If there’s one thing Biden’s been good at over a fifty year career, it’s reading the political winds. Obama reportedly encouraged him not to make a presidential bid against Hillary Clinton, as even Biden himself acknowledged in a 2017 memoir. Clinton was, after all, the “most qualified candidate ever,” according to Obama. So after months of speculation, Biden finally announced in October 2015 that he would not be running for president — with the understanding this meant the end of his political career. The question for Biden then became: how to maintain the lifestyle he had grown accustomed to and not just fade into post-political obscurity?

He was a milquetoast political servant with no real skills or accomplishments to speak of. There would be no 7-figure speaking fees in his future. Neither could he be very useful in the private sector. No, his back up plan would have to be the same as every other political has-been— the soft foreign influence peddling that’s been Washington’s worst-kept secret for decades.

It is likely no coincidence that at the time Biden believed his political career was winding down that Hunter’s foreign business entanglements kicked into high gear. The first big payout came in February 2014, when Hunter’s firm Rosemont Seneca received $3.5 million from Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina. In spring of that year, Hunter then joined Ukrainian energy firm Burisma’s board of directors at a salary of $1 million per year. He spent the next year fostering relationships with businessmen from Kazakhstan and Romania. By the time Biden announced he would not be running for president, Hunter had already begun a relationship with Chinese infrastructure company CEFC. That relationship would eventually pay out over $8 million to the Biden family and their associates by 2017. (RELATED: Hunter Biden’s Latest Legal Allegation Could Be ‘Very Bad’ For American Journalism, Analysts Say)

From phone logs and bank records to GPS data, there is now a mountain of circumstantial evidence tying Joe Biden to his son’s foreign business dealings. It is almost impossible to imagine that Hunter’s scheming happened without the express knowledge and consent of his father. In all likelihood, however, it went a step further: knowing he stood at the edge of oblivion, Joe likely instructed Hunter to secure the family’s future. But if you are a loving, devoted father, this is the last thing you would do to your child.

Joe Biden has had a famously tragic life. His first wife and daughter died in a car accident in 1972. His son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Reeling from “overwhelming grief,” Hunter — with a decades-long history of alcoholism and cocaine addiction — has admitted to relapsing after his elder brother’s death. Rather than support his last living son as his demons re-emerged, he sent him into the belly of the beast.

To help “the family,” Hunter had to cavort with some of the world’s shadiest oligarchs and became a toy for them to placate and pamper. They plied him with untold amounts of booze, drugs, and whatever other forms of degeneracy just to have their way with his father. The former Soviet bloc is known for drug smuggling, underage sex workers, and unregulated nightlife. How many Eastern European hookers did Hunter smoke crack with in the late 2010s — one hundred, one thousand, more? Biden not only sacrificed his patriotism by selling the appearance of influence, but he sacrificed his son the precise moment he was at his most vulnerable.

And for what? A few million dollars to buy some creature comfort in his twilight years. It may sound like a lot of money, but the grand total is still less than what Obama can casually bring in from a few speeches and a Netflix movie. Biden cannot claim to be doing this for the good of “the family.” These silver coins will not support his many grandchildren for long — and he irreparably destroyed his son in the process. (RELATED: Here’s All The Evidence Connecting Joe Biden To Hunter Biden’s Foreign Business Dealings)

There’s no question about it: a good father would sacrifice his own wealth and comfort to save his son. He would fly to Kazakhstan, or Russia, or any godforsaken shithole on the planet, and drag him kicking and screaming back to America for detox and rehab. It is not uncommon for parents with far fewer resources than the Bidens to skimp and sacrifice to put together $50,000 for life saving rehab. Biden, with all his power, money, and resources, could have gotten the best help in the world for Hunter.  He chose not to.

Biden almost achieved his soft landing. In all likelihood, Hunter would have partied his way into the grave, and Biden would have enjoyed a comfortable retirement on a private beach somewhere — if not for two unforeseen developments. First, Donald Trump rocketed to power on a wave of resentment against progressive arrogance, making genteel Joe useful again to the Democratic Party machine. Then, the railroading of President Trump led to a renewed interest in FARA violations. When Biden was thrust back into the spotlight as the best candidate to take on Trump in 2020, it was only a matter before Hunter’s demons would come under scrutiny.

Knowing this, Biden could have bowed out gracefully. He could have resisted the call back to the political world, knowing it would cause acute stress for Hunter — who was then just beginning to recover from his relapse — by putting his life under a microscope. But he didn’t. After decades of failed presidential bids, he could not resist his will to power, and he once again sacrificed his son in its pursuit.

So when the media says that Hunter Biden is a victim, in a way, they’re right. He’s not a victim of Republican inquisitors, who cannot be expected to overlook his immoral and illegal behavior just because of his unfortunate circumstances. Neither is he a victim of his addiction, despite the hell it put him through. What he is is a victim of his own father, whose greed and narcissism enabled him to become the worst man he could be.

Contrary to the Washington consensus, Joe Biden has never been a good dad trying and failing to help his son. He has already destroyed his son’s life twice. With the walls closing in as we head into a tight election year, he can be counted on to do it once again. Hunter will be facing a whole new level of scrutiny as his gun trial begins; Joe’s safest political path forward is to allow him to fall on his sword.