In a twist of events, President Joe Biden may be the one spending the rest of the year worrying about legal issues, rather than his 2024 rival Donald Trump.
Trump is heading into November's election having become the first current or former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 felony charges in his hush money trial.
However, it now seems likely that the former president will not stand trial in the other three criminal cases he is involved in before November's rematch with Biden. The classified documents case, the Georgia 2020 election interference investigation and the federal probe into the events which led up to the January 6 attack are all indefinitely on hold pending various appeals and legal arguments.
In comparison, the president's son Hunter Biden is currently on trial in Delaware facing federal gun charges, becoming the first child of a sitting president to be a criminal defendant. Hunter Biden is also set to go on trial in California in September over allegations he failed to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019, just weeks before the 2024 Election takes place.
Biden has so far distanced himself from his son's legal issues to avoid distraction, with first lady Jill Biden attending proceedings in Delaware instead. In a statement ahead of the gun trial, Biden expressed his "boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength."
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements that he was not a drug user on a federal form while purchasing a firearm in 2018, and of illegal gun possession while being a drug user.
It is too early to suggest if a conviction for Hunter Biden in either the gun or tax trials would damage his father's reelection hopes.
Polls are currently split as to whether Trump's felony convictions have damaged or strengthened the Republican's chances of winning the 2024 Election.
Gregory Germain, professor of law at Syracuse University College of Law, said the "division of public opinion" means it is hard to decipher if Trump's felony conviction or a potential guilty verdict for Hunter Biden will influence voters.
"Each side will try to capitalize on the others' misfortune, but I don't think the voting public is going to care much about these cases," Germain told Newsweek. "The voting public is probably looking at more serious issues about competency, about the economy, about our enemies in the world, and those are much more important questions for them."
Germain said accusations that the "questionable" hush money case against Trump was politically motivated could help the former president as "a victim, and probably help him in the election rather than hurt him." Germain added that Trump's reelection hopes would be more severely damaged if he was convicted of the more "serious" charges he is accused of in the federal classified documents or January 6 cases prior to November.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the classified documents case, indefinitely postponed the start of the trial while she hears various legal challenges and appeals. The federal 2020 Election obstruction case is on hold while the Supreme Court rules if Trump can cite presidential immunity to dismiss the charges.
The GOP is almost guaranteed to use Hunter Biden's legal issues as a campaign ploy against the president for the next five months regardless of their outcomes.
Norm Eisen, who served as a special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump's first impeachment, suggested Hunter Biden's gun trial, where details about his history of drug abuse are being relayed to the jury, may elicit more sympathy than scorn from the public.
"In the current Hunter Biden trial one of the themes has been about the prevalence of addiction," Eisen told Newsweek. "In fact, four of the 12 current jurors, and two of the alternates, have friends or family members who are struggling with addiction. That may create as much sympathy for President Biden as it does negativity.
"But at the bottom line, I think people understand that these judgments are not about the candidate himself, but about a family member. Of course, there's also the question of whether the two Hunter Biden trials result in guilty verdicts or not. Obviously if Biden's son is acquitted, that changes the calculus still more."
Trump has vowed to appeal his falsifying business records conviction. Hunter Biden's gun charge trial is expected to last around two weeks.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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