A Tale Of Two Trials

By now, you're well aware that Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in a Manhattan court based on a creative conflation of hush money payments (legal), improper record-keeping (misdemeanors whose statutes of limitation expired), and a vague "influence an election" law. From what I've read, Trump has a very good case for reversal on appeal, but that's mostly irrelevant because the real purpose of DA Alvin Bragg's prosecution was to hang "convicted felon" around Trump's neck ahead of the election. You will hear those words time and time again in the next five months - and you will hear them forever bleated by the legacy media even if the convictions are reversed on appeal.

A dispassionate observer would be wholly justified in concluding that this prosecution would not have happened to Daniel J Frump.

That same dispassionate observer would also be justified in concluding that the other big case - the prosecution of Hunter Biden for lying on federal paperwork for the purchase of a firearm - would not be happening were his name Hudson Bidet.

To elaborate: Any purchase of a firearm from a licensed dealer requires completion of a Firearms Transaction Record, also known as Form 4473. That form includes this question:

and this attestation:

There is ample evidence that Biden was a user of controlled substances at the time of the purchase, evidence found on the abandoned laptop that legacy and social media went to enormous (and failed) efforts to discredit. So, his checking “no” on the 4473, and signing the attestation, would be felonious.

While Biden's act is more obvious and overt, it's something that's almost never prosecuted. The government spends far more of its time trying to disarm law abiding citizens than it does chasing down those who lied on their 4473s about drug use, or for that matter looking into people who failed the National Instant Criminal Background Check required for any purchase from a licensed dealer.

There is another element at play. Is it constitutional to deny someone his Second Amendment rights absent a successful prosecution for a crime? Is it constitutional to require someone waive his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in order to exercise a Second Amendment right?

There are on-going efforts to overturn the prohibition against gun ownership by convicted felons who have served their time and whose crimes were non-violent, with a Ninth Circuit ruling dropping last month, supporting the notion that denying an individual Constitutionally protected rights on flimsy premises should be treated with great suspicion.

So it goes with Hunter Biden. We may agree that someone who habitually gets stoned buying a gun may not be the wisest idea, but we don't prohibit those who get drunk every weekend from buying guns, do we? Nor should we, nor can* we, barring individual and properly adjudicated misdeeds. Believe me, I don't see Hunter as the poster child for gun rights, but it remains that his prosecution is political, just as Trump's was.

Prosecutors pick and choose who they prosecute, and they always have. Some of that is tactical, or a judicious allocation of scarce time and resources, but since District Attorneys are elected, it is inevitable that they use their offices to advance their re-election prospects. Getting re-elected is, with rare exception, a politician's primary concern, and prosecutors run on their records. That's not to say they are all corrupted, but the moral hazard is there, and the notion of "blind justice" is far more fantasy than reality.

Some have conflated the two trials to the point of equivalence. I’m not swayed by that conflation. Trump’s prosecution was about costing him the election. Hunter’s prosecution? That’s certainly at play, but I read it as about sticking it to the system that protected him at all costs and by any means necessary, including lying in order to influence an election in Biden’s favor.

The core of the disparity is the massive machine that is government favoring some while selectively harming others. These two trials should remind us that the real difference in America is not left-right, but rather big government vs citizens.

I won’t shed a tear if Biden is convicted. Just as I wouldn’t use John Wayne Gacy in my arguments against the death penalty, Biden would not be my poster child for arguing about the injustice of certain gun ownership restrictions. This doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the political nature of his prosecution. Or that this prosecution might actually be welcomed by some Democratic strategists. Depending on how it goes, it could be used to argue that Joe respects the law… or that Joe’s been so damaged by it that he needs to be replaced on the ballot for this fall’s election.

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A footnote: Trump’s conviction requires him to surrender his carry permit and get rid of any guns he owns. Does anyone think that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records change his trustworthiness regarding firearm ownership?