The “something something Hunter Biden” defense
As the Donald Trump train heads for its inevitable train wreck, the Republican need for whataboutisms increases. It’s practically a law of physics, like the inverse square law or Newton’s laws of motion. For every Donald Trump indictment there’s an equal and opposite hint that Joe Biden did something just as bad. It’s what you might call the “something something Hunter Biden” defense.
Just as baffling are the people who remain ambivalent. For as long as I can remember there’s been a tendency among certain kinds of people to employ dismissive formulas to political situations. They meet a bill of crimes recited against any politician with a knowing sigh and a comment like, “they all do it,” or “they’re all equally corrupt.”
I don’t know which is more exasperating. I suppose it depends on the situation. But both are examples of a blinding political bias, ignorance borne of laziness or both.
The good news is there is still a place in America where such nonsense isn’t so easy to get away with, and that’s a court of law. Many Republicans are learning that the hard way. For example, despite his drunkenly numerous and hysteria-fraught claims of flagrant voter fraud in public, Rudy Giuliani was forced to admit in more than one court of law that he had no evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.
Rudy further learned that persisting in the face of such lack of evidence, to file lawsuit after lawsuit and make false claim after false claim in public, has serious consequences. Rudy’s licence to practise law is probably going to be taken away from him. He may even wind up in prison one day.
Such is the clarifying effect of American jurisprudence. It marches forward inexorably. And unlike the court of public opinion, it doesn’t ordinarily put up with bullshit for very long.
Very soon now MAGA Republicans and fence-sitters are going to see how the truth is handled by grownups. They are going to discover for themselves that wild speculation and accusations without merit have no home in a court of law. In a courtroom, long standing precedent and practice disallows hearsay and speculation. Arguments of wrongdoing must stand on their own two feet and they must be backed with witness testimony, public statements and recordings by defendants, and forensic evidence.
This is what they will come to understand when Donald Trump is put on trial. They are going to learn that the burden of proof not only rests with the claimant — in this case the prosecution — but that the burden will be met with lacerating effect.
There is no place in a courtroom for the “something something Hunter Biden” defense. Donald Trump’s crimes will be laid out one by one, explicitly stated by statute and devastatingly proven by witness testimony, photographic evidence and the damning contradictions and self-admissions made by the defendant himself. That is what a real prosecution looks like, and MAGA Republicans and fence-sitters alike will be forced to watch, like Alex strapped to a chair with his eyes propped open in “A Clockwork Orange.” Under the coruscating glare of the light of truth there will be nowhere to hide.
Very soon now MAGA Republicans are going to be taught a stearn lesson. The consequences of committing crimes of the kind committed by Donald Trump are not easy to escape when placed under the clarifying lamp of justice. They have spent the last several years calling us snowflakes and LOLing in our faces. They are about to learn that he who LOLs last, LOLs best. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.