Comparison: Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal vs. Trump’s Indictment

Presidential Family Troubles: A Closer Look

News analysis

Lots of presidents have had troublesome family members.

Billy Carter, the beer-drinking, public urinating brother of Jimmy Carter, got himself registered as an agent of the Lybian government, sparking a Senate inquiry.

Roger Clinton, the ex-convict half-brother of Bill Clinton, earned the Secret Service codename “Headache,” possibly due to antics like reportedly accepting a $50,000 Rolex to lobby for the pardon of crime boss Rosario Gambino.

Then there’s Neil Bush, who was investigated, though not charged, for his role in the collapse of a $1 billion savings and loan during the presidency of his father, George H. W. Bush.

When George W. Bush was president, his brother Neil entered a consulting agreement with a semiconductor company managed, in part, by the son of Jiang Zemin, then general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and paramount leader of China.

A significant difference in the Hunter Biden case is that it lands side-by-side with federal charges against former President Donald Trump.

Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes will be settled by a guilty plea to two misdemeanor counts of tax evasion resulting in probation, plus a weapons charge that could be dismissed through a diversion program.

Meanwhile, Trump—Joe Biden’s 2020 political opponent and possible presidential nominee in 2024—faces 37 felony counts related to the handling of classified documents.

The fact that the younger Biden’s plea deal was announced barely a week after Trump was indicted in federal court only sharpens the contrast.

Critics see these cases as clear evidence of a double standard in the American justice system. For those in power, misdeeds and even criminal offenses are glossed over by the authorities. At the same time, the system is wielded like a club to embarrass, harass, or even imprison those who oppose the powerful.

Biden’s defenders point out that the facts in each case and the seriousness of the alleged offenses are wildly different, and that the prosecutor offering the plea deal was appointed by Trump and retained in office by Biden to avoid even a hint of interference.

No matter. The perception of a double standard could impact the 2024 presidential election and, experts say, will almost certainly spark further distrust in and possibly changes to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the future.

Republicans Fired Up

Republican leaders responded immediately after the Hunter Biden plea agreement was announced on June 20 with the assertion that the deal proves the existence of a “two-tiered system of justice” in America, the kind usually seen only in notoriously corrupt countries.

“I, like tens of millions of Americans, am concerned … about a two-tiered system of justice, like one set of rules for Republicans and one set of rules for Democrats,” former Vice President Mike Pence said in a televised interview on June 20.

“A ‘sweetheart’ deal for Hunter [and Joe], as they continue their quest to ‘get’ Trump, Joe’s political opponent. We are now a third-world country!” Trump wrote in a June 20 social media post.

Tulsi Gabbard, the former congresswoman from Hawaii who left the Democratic party in 2022, went further.

“Every banana republic or dictatorship has a two-tiered justice system. The ‘in-crowd,’ like Hunter Biden, get a slap on the wrist while dictators use federal law enforcement and government institutions as their own personal goon squad to go after political opponents,” Gabbard wrote on Twitter on June 21.

That idea, accurate or not, is likely to animate Republican rhetoric for some time, analysts say.

“The Republican candidates will likely have a field day with this development,” government analyst and former Navy intelligence officer Matt Shoemaker told The Epoch Times.

Despite the sermonizing, the most likely impact of the Biden deal on the election is a fundraising windfall for Republicans, some experts say.

Asked whether the Hunter Biden plea deal would hurt the president’s chances of re-election, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) was matter of fact: “No,” he told The Epoch Times.

Jeffries turned the narrative around, saying that the Republican attempt to impeach Biden would likely backfire. “All it will do is highlight that they have no plan, no vision, no agenda,” he said.

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), who is convinced the plea deal demonstrates a dual system of justice, is less certain that it will change minds. “Well, you know, that’s to be seen. I can’t predict the future,” she told The Epoch Times.

“There are absolutely no implications from the Hunter Biden plea deal on the 2024 presidential campaign because only MAGA Republicans actually care about Hunter or his crimes in the first place,” political analyst Andrew Lieb told The Epoch Times.

Democrats and independents are indifferent on the matter, he added. The real value of the plea deal is in fundraising.

“Only Republicans care about the plea deal, and it can therefore only be utilized as a talking point to rile their base and raise money,” Lieb said.

Indeed, Trump raised more than $6.6 million following his indictment on federal charges according to a June 14 campaign email to supporters.

Suspicions Confirmed

The more immediate effect of the plea agreement, juxtaposed with the Trump indictment, is that it tends to confirm the widely held belief that there really are two standards of justice in America.

That perception exists across the political spectrum, according to Marie Eisenstein, a professor of political science at Indiana University specializing in social trust and its impact on elections.

“There is a perception in this country that we actually have a two-tiered justice system, and that the accepted orthodoxy—no matter what the topic may be—happens to be more left of center than right of center,” Eisenstein told The Epoch Times.

“And then if you go against that, you’re far more likely to be dealt with harshly politically, in the media, and possibly legally,” Eisenstein said.

“The level of trust in this country is at an all-time low … We are less trusting of each other, we are less trusting of our government than we’ve practically ever been. And I think the part of it is that we do not think that we have equal weights on th