Hunter Biden shouldn’t be remotely relevant to the question of whether President Trump abused his power with Ukraine. But the former second son can’t help himself.
Rather than keep his head down as his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, begins a grueling primary process amid an impeachment trial that the Trump team has attempted to make all about him, Hunter demands to be seen and is always on his worst behavior.
Sure, Hunter seems to have retired the strip clubs and cocaine, but he and his wife, recent acquaintance Melissa Biden, can’t quit the Hollywood life. They’re renting a $3.8 million manor in the Hollywood Hills to the tune of $12,000 per month and cruising around town in a new Porsche Panamera GTS. Like a B-list starlet trying to catch the eye of her actor ex and the paparazzi in the process, Hunter and his pregnant wife have strutted around the Grove, the open-air, mid-city mall famous for celebrity rehabilitations in the press, and most recently brunched at the Waldorf Astoria on Wilshire Boulevard.
If Hunter were one of millions of Angelenos, none of this would prove remotely inappropriate. But not only is Hunter playing with the press while his father’s trying to win the Democratic nomination for president, but he’s also doing so while Republicans are trying to frame the Bidens as corrupt wheeler-dealers who built a fortune doing no work in Ukraine. And Biden’s baby mama drama is only adding to his profile.
If Hunter can rent a home in the Hollywood Hills and purchase a shiny new Porsche, there’s no ethical or pragmatic reason for him not to sign a paternity check and make his personal problems disappear from public view. Instead, Hunter forced the mother of his child to go public and take him to court for child support. Using the worst possible defense of himself, after outright lying about his paternity, Hunter claimed that he didn’t have the money to pay up. This is all the more amusing, as Republicans want to remind the public as frequently as possible, given that Hunter received tens of thousands of dollars a month for his gig on the board of a Ukrainian energy company and is now paying about $12,000 per month in rent.
There’s still no evidence that Joe Biden himself did anything corrupt in Ukraine. And Hunter shouldn’t be relevant to the question of what Trump has done in office. But with Republicans warming up to calling witnesses and the Trump team’s fallacious but strategically effective defense of the questions Trump had about Burisma Holdings, Hunter’s practically begging for a subpoena. The only one unfairly losing in the story is good old Uncle Joe.
