Now is not a good time to be Hunter Biden. His first trial on gun charges starts Monday. His attorney did everything he could to delay it and the judge just wasn't buying it. So now he's going to face the music in a trial where the most incriminating facts don't seem arguable.
Did he purchase a gun? Yes.
Was he a drug addict at the time? Also yes. And unfortunately for him there are both witnesses to his drug problem and his own book in which he admits to the drug problem.
Combine those two facts and he should lose this case pretty quickly.
But his problems are worse than that. This morning Axios reported on a civil case which he's been involved in with ex-wife Kathleen Buhle. His freedom isn't at stake in this one but it sounds like he's got a tremendous amount of unpaid debts:
On Jan. 29, 2021 — just after President Biden’s inauguration and following a year-and-a-half of legal jousting — a D.C. court found Hunter was in breach of his divorce agreement and owed Buhle more than $1.7 million in spousal support, legal fees and interest since their 2017 divorce.Their divorce agreement called for Hunter to pay Buhle $37,000 a month plus 50% of anything he made over $875,000 annually, according to documents filed in D.C. Superior Court retrieved by Axios.Hunter didn’t pay the additional spousal support he owed in 2017 and 2018, when he earned $2.4 million and $2.1 million, respectively, according to the court documents.As a result, the court determined he owed Buhle $1.1 million plus 6% interest for 2017 and 2018.Hunter also largely stopped paying Buhle’s monthly alimony after she filed her lawsuit in June 2019, adding to his unpaid debts.His lawyers argued he wanted to pay Buhle but no longer had the money after his spiral into drug addiction.
Go figure, the stripper-impregnating, perjury-committing deadbeat dad who sells paintings for millions and attempted to deduct the money he spent on prostitutes as a business expense on his taxes isn’t the most responsible ex-husband.
Every couple weeks or so, President Biden makes some pledge and gives “his word as a Biden” that he’ll keep it. But Hunter Biden and his father keep demonstrating, over and over again, that “the word of a Biden” means jack squat. Yes, yes, Joe Biden is on the ballot, not his son. But the entire sales pitch for Biden himself is that he’s this old-fashioned throwback to a better, more honest time, a self-described “devout Catholic” who stands for the small-town values of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The president has even framed the upcoming election as a choice between “Scranton values or Mar-a-Lago values.” (Biden hasn’t lived in Scranton since 1953.)
Well, the president’s son keeps making his values abundantly clear, over and over again – chemically-dependent self-destructive narcissism, selfishness, hedonism, debauchery, a walking festival of irresponsibility and decadence, a lifelong scofflaw with no regard for how his actions affect anyone else, including his own children and the mothers of his children. The Biden campaign is asking Americans to believe the apple fell many miles from the tree.
The White House wishes this problem would just go away. Is this about Joe Biden's claims that his son did nothing wrong? Are they still trying to live in that fantasy world? I'm not sure how any of this is protecting Joe Biden at this point.
It seems to me Hunter would be better off if Joe just went to bat for his son, put up some money to defend him and even showing up for the trial. Hell, Joe should take out a mortgage on his house. No one would blame him and he'd probably gain a lot of sympathy with his supporters who love the image of Joe as the doting dad. I guess I don't see the downside to just admitting this is a problem and embracing it. It's really too late to do anything else anyway. The trial starts Monday and at that point not talking about it will seem odd.