How to solve the Hunter Biden problem

A conversation with Damon Linker.

(Hunter and Joe Biden)

Regular readers of this newsletter know that I am a BIG fan of Damon Linker and his “Notes from the Middleground” Substack.

I think Damon is one of the most original and honest thinkers in politics today and am continually impressed by the depth and breath of his writing on “Notes from the Middleground.”

I have been particularly intrigued by his thoughts — mostly on Twitter X — about Hunter Biden, the son of the president, and how the ongoing special counsel investigation into him could impact the 2024 race.

I reached out to Damon to see if we could do have a conversation via email about all things Hunter. He agreed. That conversation — edited only lightly for flow — is below.

Before we get to it, please take a minute to subscribe to Damon’s Substack. It really is terrific.

And, as always you can subscribe to this newsletter — as a free or paid subscriber — here:

Damon,

I have gone back and forth on Hunter Biden for a while now. On the one hand, I feel bad for him — he is clearly an addict who made some really poor decisions in the throes of his addiction.

On the other hand, he’s the son of the current president of the United States. And there’s sworn testimony — in front of Congress — by a former business aide that Hunter Biden got his dad on the phone with clients and sought to foster the illusion that he had influence over administration decisions.

So, how do you think about Hunter Biden? And how SHOULD we think about him in terms of 2024?

Chris

Chris,

I have conservative friends and followers on Substack who have been begging me for months to take a strong stand on the Hunter Biden business. But until recently, I’ve deliberately avoided thinking about it too much. Why would I care that the president’s son is a drug addict who’s used his name and proximity to power to enrich himself? It’s sleazy, sure. But Hunter doesn’t work in the White House. And the other shoe never seems to drop: Where’s the evidence linking Hunter’s corruption to his father? If Republicans had solid proof connecting the president to Hunter’s schemes, they would be going public with it. But instead we get this drip, drip, drip of insinuation and circumstantial evidence that crooked stuff was going on but no smoking gun showing direct payments to the president or any policy quid pro quo for those paying Hunter. 

What this has reminded me of most of all are the Benghazi hearings that took up so much time and attention in Congress and on Fox News during the Obama administration. Republican muckrakers took an unfortunate event and tried to blow it up into a huge scandal to hurt the president and his party. But the story never gained traction outside the most engaged segment of the Republican base. If that’s all the right’s Hunter Biden obsession amounted to, I’d still be ignoring it. 

But lately I’ve begun to worry. That drip of insinuation and circumstantial evidence has continued, while the president himself has done nothing to separate himself from his son, who still visits the White House and has even attended a state dinner within the last couple of months. That seems reckless to me.

During the final season of The West Wing, the communications director for the Bartlet administration gets himself embroiled in a major scandal, and the White House Counsel makes the case for summarily firing him on the grounds that he has become “toxic to the presidency.” I think we’ve arrived at the moment when Hunter Biden could well be toxic to the Biden presidency — even if no direct foreign payments to Joe Biden are even revealed, and even if no direct quid pro quo is ever substantiated. 

That’s because enough has already been revealed to suggest Joe Biden either knew what his son was doing — enriching himself through outright influence peddling to foreign actors — and went along with it, or that he should have known and didn’t because he turned a blind eye to it.

I fear that either would be more than enough to undermine one of Biden’s strongest messages in a general-election rematch with Donald Trump in 2024. In 2020, Biden portrayed himself as a decent, normie American who would save the country from the chaos and corruption of the Trump administration and family. But if Republicans can demonstrate that Biden is actually not all that much better than Trump, then we have a 2016 scenario unfolding all over again, with “Crooked Joe” standing in for “Crooked Hillary.” Trump won’t have to make the second shoe drop. He’ll just have to describe a situation that looks sordid in order to convince a meaningful number of voters that both candidates are sleazy. That’s how Trump could win — by sending Biden’s negatives high enough that the two major-party nominees seem equally bad in the eyes of enough swing-state voters to make a decisive difference in November 2024.

Damon

Damon,

So, I have made this same argument — and the response I get is usually something like: “It’s his son, what do you want him to do?????”

Which, I get.  As a dad of two boys, I understand that as a parent you always want to stand by your kids — especially when they’re struggling.  That said, I am not the president of the United States.  Nor is one of my sons under active investigation by a special counsel.

How much does or should that change things? I honestly don’t know the answer (if you have thoughts on it I would welcome them.)

I guess my take would be that there is a difference between supporting a struggling son and putting him front and center (or allowing him to put himself front and center).  The state dinner, the staying at the White House  — these are signs to me that Joe Biden may not grasp, fully, the bad position Hunter has put him in.

And, story after story comes out that suggests that there is no one in the White House who feels comfortable bringing up the Hunter Biden problem to the president. Which, as anyone who will tell you, is a problem.  

So, what would you recommend Joe Biden do — to be a good dad and a smart politician? Or are those goals to divergent to have a single solution for both? 

Chris

Chris,

Yes, I’ve gotten several responses like that, often with somewhat angrier and more colorful language, since weighing on on this subject a couple days ago on Twitter/X. 

Within limits, I can see the humanity and decency of the response. Joe Biden lost his wife and daughter in a car accident decades ago. He lost his first-born son to cancer in 2015. The suggestion that he should freeze out his only surviving child, and one who’s struggled with addiction and the consequences of bad decisions for much of his adult life — it can sound inhumane. And it would be if Joe Biden were just some guy living down the block, or maybe even if we were still just a senator. 

But he’s the president of the United States! The position comes with many unique burdens. His son hasn’t just found himself embroiled in tax problems. He’s been accused of using his proximity to the president (since he became Vice President in 2009) to enrich himself by taking what amount to bribes in return for (the illusion or reality of) access. Pay me this large sum on money and I’ll talk to the Vice President, former VP, or President himself on your behalf and get him to do you favors. That’s a pretty big deal accusation of corruption happening, as it were, directly adjacent to the president! The only way to make it seem less significant than it is is to compare it to the worse things that happened when and after Trump was president. But the whole point of the Biden presidency was to restore higher standards after Trump and his family brought them low. That’s what I meant in the last round when I talked about Biden giving up one of his biggest electoral advantages.

Now, I get it when Democrats respond with, “Biden’s love for his son is one of his most admirable qualities. If he kicked Hunter to the curb, that would lead voters to turn on him in disgust.” Maybe. But I also think it’s possible to imagine a different approach to the problem. Imagine a public statement like this, “I love my son, unconditionally. But I also hold the highest office in the land, and that comes with uniquely high expectations and standards of scrutiny. Hunter has been accused of using his closeness to me to enrich himself. He’s currently under investigation by a special counsel for these actions. I want both the appearance and reality of transparency in this investigation, along with assurance to the American people that I take the allegations seriously and that there will be no future opportunities for morally questionable acts during the time of the investigation. For that reason, I have informed Hunter that he will no longer be permitted to visit me at the White House or attend official functions, including state dinners, until the investigation is complete. When Hunter and I see each other at Camp David or at my Delaware home, a member of my senior staff will be present at all times. Going forward, a member of my senior staff will also listen in on any phone conversations between Hunter and myself.”

Or something like that. Hunter wouldn’t be cut off. But he would be managed for the remainder of his father’s time in office, or until the special-counsel investigation is complete — reflecting the reality you note, which is that Hunter has put his father in a very bad position. 

Would Joe Biden go along with this? There’s no sign yet that he would. As you note, his staff appears to fear even raising the subject with him. That’s bad, too. Biden’s likeliest opponent in 2024 faces a multitude of criminal charges. The moral contrast between him and Biden should be black and white, not black and a murky grey. Someone needs to get Joe Biden to see this. Does he really want to be stuck on a debate stage with Donald Trump while journalists intermix questions about Trump’s record with others about his son’s alleged corruption and its personal proximity to him? I doubt that very much. But it’s going to happen. Better to get out ahead of it and early and as unambiguously as possible. 

Damon

Damon,

So that gets me to one of the hardest question — and one I get all the time: By talking about Hunter Biden and his issues (and how that will impact the ballot) are we making a false equivalency between Hunter Biden and Donald Trump?

Let me give you my two cents on that (and I want to hear your take too!): What Donald Trump is accused of doing and what Hunter Biden are accused of doing are not the same thing. 

1. Trump’s alleged crimes are way more serious — and there are just way more of them.

2. Trump is the very likely candidate to be president for one of the two party’s. Hunter Biden is not.

3. Hunter Biden has apologized for his actions and said he regrets them. Donald Trump has not.

But, to me, just because Donald Trump has done a lot of bad things doesn’t mean the Bidens are or should be  immune from scrutiny. We should cover Donald Trump’s norm breaking and totally out-there statements and actions AND be able to say whether the Bidens are acting the way they should.

What’s your take?

Chris

Chris,

I think that’s exactly the way we should be thinking about this. Since 2016, Trump’s message has been something like, “The system is corrupt from top to bottom. That includes me, but I’m at least honest about it. Everyone else pretends to be morally pure, but it’s an act covering over the same crooked power grabs.” Trump made the argument against Hillary Clinton in 2016. He tried and had a difficult time making it against Joe Biden in 2020. And he’s trying to do it against Biden again now, with the following adjustments: “The crooked powers that be will stop at nothing to take me down and deny me and my supporters an electoral victory. They say I’m too corrupt, too guilty of crimes, to be permitted to win power. But this is only persuasive if we ignore the deeds of the Biden crime family. If we give the Bidens the same scrutiny my enemies give me, we see that my opponent isn’t that different than I am. The Bidens use their power to enrich themselves by giving favors to those willing and able to pay.”

But as you indicate in your question, Chris, this isn’t accurate. Even if we assume Hunter Biden did the worst things that have been alleged, he’s not the president himself. Neither does he work for the administration. I suppose if it were revealed that Joe Biden knew about Hunter’s efforts to sell access for money and personally profited from it, and especially if quid pro quos could be demonstrated, that would closer to Trumpian levels of corruption. But there’s no evidence of that. And even then, Trump’s gravest legal troubles go far beyond that kind of financial corruption. Trump has been accused of mishandling classified documents, conspiring to overturn the 2020 election at the federal level, and conspiring to commit election fraud in Georgia. Those acts are much more serious than anything swirling around the Bidens. 

The problem, though, as I indicated in our last round, is that Trump wants to muddy the moral waters as much as he can, to make it seem as if he and Biden are close to equally corrupt. That leveling of the playing field gives certain wavering voters a permission structure to vote for Trump despite it all. “Yeah, Trump is bad, but aren’t all politicians crooked?”  

It’s crucially important, I think, to uphold the differences between the Trumps and the Bidens while not giving the latter a free pass. Just because Hunter Biden isn’t as bad as Donald Trump doesn’t mean he didn’t abuse his father’s power for personal gain. It’s that kind of honest accounting of relative transgressions that gives Democrats the authority to highlight the distinctive awfulness of Trump. 

Damon

Damon,

Alright, so the operative question then is what should Biden do?

Short of totally separating from Hunter, which you and I both believe to be VERY unlikely, is there a step (or steps) that can be taken to give Biden the authority you talk about?

A speech? A sit down interview with a media outlet? Some sort of ethics proposal regarding family members?

I have been amazed how little attention (or strategy) the White House and the campaign have dedicated to dealing with the Hunter problem. If past is prologue, they may do nothing.

Chris

Chris,

Well, in a previous round I suggested some language the administration could use for a statement. That could also be expanded for a speech, or to frame remarks at the top of an interview. All of those could be good. I’m not really sold on the ethics proposal, since that would run the risk of it sounding like Biden was saying, “Please create rules to keep me from doing the stuff I did in the past.” That’s pretty awkward. 

No matter what he does, I think it’s important that he forthrightly declares what he didn’t do — for example, “I never knowingly received funds from foreign sources in return for favors” — and then, of course, be certain that nothing that contradicts such a statement later comes to light. Besides that, Biden should make clear that he supports the special counsel’s investigation and will cooperate with it in any and every way he can. 

But I agree with you that all of this presumes a change of outlook on the part of the president about all of this. If the pattern up until now remains in force, the president will say nothing and hope it goes away. Unfortunately, it won’t. Which means Biden will have to answer questions about it on a debate stage during the fall of 2024, if not before. 

Damon