Hunter Biden's new high profile is bad news for his dad

On sons.

(Hunter Biden)

Hunter Biden went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday with a stern message: I am done being quiet.

“For six years, I have been the target of the unrelenting Trump attack machine shouting ‘Where’s Hunter?’ Well, here is my answer, I am here,” he told a group of reporters outside the U.S. Capitol.

It was a striking moment. Up until Hunter arrived to speak, there was some question as to whether he would appear for a scheduled closed-door deposition in front of House Republicans set for yesterday.

He defied that congressional subpoena — and took his message straight to the public instead. (House GOP leaders said they would now move to hold Hunter in contempt.)

That decision is the latest sign that Hunter and his legal team have decided that laying low — and trying to negotiate some sort of plea deal behind the scenes — is no longer his most effective strategy.

As Politico wrote in late November of this change:

For years, as Hunter Biden faced a protracted criminal probe, he was told to cooperate with prosecutors and wait quietly for exoneration. That strategy, favored by veteran Democrats who came of age in a less pugilistic political era, failed.

The president’s son is now under one indictment, is bracing for another and has become the face of the Republican impeachment probe of his father. And now, he’s directly taking on his adversaries. Over the past three months, Hunter Biden has filed a barrage of lawsuits and has challenged his indictment on gun charges by attacking the prosecution as tainted by Republican pressure. He is even trying to subpoena Donald Trump.

The decision to take the fight to Republicans — and in a decidedly public way — may be a good thing for Hunter’s legal outlook. (I am not, much to the disappointment of my mother, a lawyer.)

But, politically speaking, is is bad news for his father as he seeks to bounce back from woefully poor polling numbers entering the election year.

White House aides have made no secret of the fact that they had hoped to not be talking about Hunter and his problems in 2024. Those hopes were dashed over the summer when a plea deal — in which Hunter was expected to plead guilty to two charges of not paying his taxes — stunningly collapsed.

Since then, Hunter Biden has been indicted twice — once for the illegal purchase of a gun while he was addicted to drugs and once for a variety of charges related to his four years of unpaid taxes. A special counsel continues to investigate him.

It’s worth saying here — as Hunter did in his press availability on Wednesday — that there is no evidence linking Joe Biden to any of the allegations against Hunter (despite the best efforts of House Republicans).

But, simply because no direct ties exist does not mean that Hunter Biden isn’t a problem for his dad. He quite clearly is.

As Axios’ Alex Thompson reported this morning:

After mostly lying low for years, Hunter Biden — ignoring the wishes of some White House aides — is going on the attack in the belief that it will help President Biden in the long run, according to people familiar with his team's thinking…

…Hunter's new strategy has caused tension between his team and the White House. Top aides to President Biden originally crafted a plan to largely not respond to attacks and conservative media coverage — a risk-averse approach to avoid giving stories more oxygen.

But Hunter's team ultimately wasn't satisfied. The media coverage didn't die down. His team came to believe that his lack of a response was alienating potential Democratic allies — and hurting his father politically.

This is simply the latest in a slew of stories that make clear that a) the White House is not at all comfortable with Hunter Biden’s new approach and b) Hunter Biden and his legal team don’t much care.

And, the one person who might be able to tell Hunter to stand down — the president — has a long-existing blind spot for his son.

Again, Alex Thompson’s reporting is instructive here:

In private, no issue is more likely to anger or sadden President Biden than attacks on his son Hunter, according to people close to the president who have seen his moods shift when there's bad news about Hunter.

Only a few long-serving aides feel free to discuss Hunter's situation with the president, and only at certain moments — knowing that it can prompt both fury and dejection.

CNN reported on Biden’s attitude toward his son back in August:

Given the facts currently known, strategists say, these voters don’t believe President Biden has been implicated in any wrongdoing. Yet Biden’s advisers also concede the topic is mostly verboten with the president, raising the prospect of a critical blind spot heading into a bruising campaign where nothing will be off limits with their Republican rivals.

Which is a problem.

Look, I get it. I have two sons. If one of them ever struggled like Hunter has struggled, I KNOW my first instinct would be to protect and defend them. And I would always be inclined to assume (and hope for) the best from them. That’s what dads (and parents more generally) do.

But — and some breaking news here — I am not the president of the United States. Joe Biden is. Which means that having a topic — even if it’s your son — that aides are fearful of talking to you about or on which you can’t see some objective truths is a MAJOR problem.

That would be true even if Biden was riding high in the polls and people thought everything in the country was going great. That, of course, is not the case. The latest evidence? A series of swing state polls conduced by Bloomberg and Morning Consult that shows Biden losing, well everywhere to Donald Trump.

A high-profile Hunter Biden — as he is now almost certain to be for the bulk of the election year — is not going to help matters.

A CNN poll conducted earlier this fall showed that a majority of Americans (55%) think Joe Biden acted inappropriately in regards the investigation into his son. Six in ten believe Joe Biden had at least some involvement in his son’s business dealings.

Those numbers make clear why the White House would MUCH prefer Hunter being in the background (or not seen at all!) for the duration of the 2024 campaign.

Once his plea deal fell apart, that scenario became very unlikely. But it now feels like we are entering an even more dangerous phase of the Hunter story for Joe Biden: His son and legal team are now independent actors, following their own beliefs about what is best for him (and his dad).

The best campaigns speak with a single voice — especially on delicate and fraught matters. It now appears that the Biden campaign won’t be doing that when it comes to the issues surrounding his son.