Fox News has quite the unexpected take on Hunter Biden's trial. – Slate
This is Totally Normal Quote of the Day, a feature highlighting a statement from the news that exemplifies just how extremely normal everything has become.
“I did gun prosecutions for six years … I bet you there weren’t 10 cases prosecuted nationwide of addicts or unlawful drug users who possessed firearms or lied on applications … why are you pursuing this one?” —Fox News commentator and former Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, somehow defending … [checks notes] Hunter Biden?
The latter-day GOP holds two truths to be self-evident: that the Department of Justice is out of control, politically motivated, and untrustworthy; and that Hunter Biden is guilty of crimes, many crimes, both wildly broad and specific.
As the Hunter Biden trial begins, though, those self-evident truths are turning out to be a bit crosswise. On one hand, after Donald Trump’s three-dozenish felony convictions, Republicans are more resolute than ever that the justice system is hopelessly politicized, partisan, and illegitimate. At the same time, they are rooting more fervidly than ever for the very same justice system to put away archvillain Hunter Biden on gun charges, for as many as 25 years.
It requires light and acrobatic footwork to pull off this two-step: When it comes to Donald Trump, the Department of Justice is motivated not by the facts of the allegation, but by the defendant’s name; when it comes to Hunter Biden, the DOJ is soberly doing the job it must do based on the dispassionate preponderance of evidence.
Most conservative commentators seem to have avoided falling prey to admitting the contradiction. But Trey Gowdy, former representative from South Carolina’s 4th District—turned anchor of Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy on Fox News, and speaking on the network this week—got twisted up and stepped in it: The Hunter Biden case, he intoned, is evidence of the politicization of the Department of Justice, motivated by the defendant’s last name and nothing else.
You hear that? Hunter Biden is the victim of political persecution! And it’s coming to you live from Fox News!
Drawing on his pre-congressional career as a lawyer, Gowdy assured the rest of the wide-eyed Fox News panel that the Hunter Biden case is dubious, unnecessary, and unprecedented. Hunter would never be facing years in the slammer if his last name weren’t Biden.
It was a far cry from what Republicans have said about Hunter for years without qualification. Indeed, Hunter has been the singular scoundrel at the heart of the GOP pitch to American voters for two straight election cycles, longer by years than the time Republicans have insisted the DOJ is corrupt. Hunter’s politically assured impunity is supposed to have augured a crime spree so severe and far-reaching that Republicans were just months ago attempting to impeach the president himself over it. Trump’s own first impeachment came out of his attempt to wring evidence of Hunter’s malfeasance out of Ukraine.
In that sense, Gowdy’s declaration is a wild one. Was it an accident, or the announcement of a new rhetorical era? Either way, with the ink just drying on Trump’s New York convictions, we’ve hit a new stage in the Republican effort to seed doubt in the legitimacy of government. If that means that Hunter Biden has to be recast as a political prisoner, so be it. Maybe it’s just easier to say the whole thing is crooked and not to be trusted.
Whatever is motivating this change of heart, it’s less a blip than a meaningful shift. Not long after Gowdy’s comments, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told HuffPost almost exactly the same thing. “I don’t think the average American would have been charged with the gun thing,” he said. “I don’t see any good coming from that.” (Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson just debuted his tripartite strategy to gore the DOJ in its entirety.)
Republicans are on the verge of getting the thing they’ve most desired for years: Hunter Biden behind bars. And now they’re rushing to disavow it.
At some level, this may be the age-old curse of getting what you’ve wished for. But it feels like a strategic about-face as well. All prosecutions are illegitimate! Free Hunter Biden! Trump 2024!
Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company.
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