What shameless act or felonious activity was not evidenced on Hunter Biden's laptop? Racist attitudes toward Asians? Soliciting prostitution? Felonious use of drugs? Photographed nudity and perverse sex? Admissions to illicit foreign shakedowns?
Hunter accused his father, President Joe Biden, of also being on the foreign take: "I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family... Unlike Pop, I won't make you give me half your salary."
Hunter's alleged felonies range from bribery to tax evasion. That he has not yet been prosecuted for anything is scandalous. His exemption is attributable only to Attorney General Merrick Garland's likely weaponized directives to federal prosecutors to downgrade or forget altogether felony charges against Hunter.
So, given such wild behavior, why would Hunter not tone it down, stop the global grifting, cease the reckless behavior -- and quit redirecting attention to the likely illegal acts of his father, the president?
Why did he not just settle the child support suit filed by his paramour, Lunden Roberts? Why haggle over money for his own daughter?
Hunter instead outrageously claimed near poverty. That excuse was hilarious, given he flies on private jets and pays nearly $16,000 a month to rent a house in tony, celebrity-ridden Malibu.
Why did Hunter ever get involved with a performance stripper in the first place after his past widely publicized liaisons with prostitutes? Why also with his own widowed sister-in-law?
Given Hunter has little or no experience or training in high-stakes international finance and investment -- and thus has no market value as an investor or broker. But he was infamous for translating that nothingness into millions in lucre due solely to his ability to monetize the influence of then-Vice President Joe Biden.
So why now, when under 24/7 scrutiny, would Hunter dare recreate himself as an "artist" by blowing through straws in his mouth?
His amateurish canvasses somehow have sold for up to $500,000 a pop. Both Biden donors and gamers saw their buys of such mediocre art as gambits either to meet with or profit from his father, Joe Biden.
But would not his painting grift only bring greater prosecutorial scrutiny and more significant embarrassment to the president?
Hunter Biden's attorneys sought to leverage federal prosecutors into agreeing to drop their charges -- by threatening to call in as a pro-Hunter witness President Joe Biden himself and thereby likely invoke a constitutional crisis!
In such a scenario, the president under oath, would be forced to lie again that he had no knowledge of or involvement in Hunter's illegal behavior. Or if he admitted the truth that he did, he would thus contradict years of his adamant denials.
Why would Hunter put his father and president in such a publicity circus?
Hunter has lost an incriminating laptop by abandoning it at a repair shop. He has forgotten his crack pipe in a rental car. His illegally registered handgun turned up in a trash dumpster near a school.
So would not the carefree Hunter insist that all the Bidens in the spotlight remain extra careful never to abandon incriminating drugs -- especially in the White House?
Yet in a West Wing first, cocaine was recently found lost in an entrance vestibule. Various media outlets claimed it belonged to someone in the "Biden family orbit."
One of two things explain the continuous reckless behavior of wayward son Hunter Biden:
One, he is either still on drugs or so suffers from past addiction that he has lost all common sense and judgment and simply cannot control his behavior.
Or, two, Hunter is an embittered, angry son. As the Biden bagman for foreign shakedown cash, he did the dirty work and most risked the legal exposure that made all the Bidens rich.
Yet, instead of familial praise -- or so the broke Hunter seems to whine on his laptop --Hunter gets no respect from those he enriched.
And now he, not they, might first go to jail.
As a result, does his continuous recklessness send a not-so-subtle reminder to all the Bidens -- his father, the "Big Guy" especially?
That is, Hunter is not going to take the fall. He will not end up in prison for decades while the other exempt Bidens continue to enjoy their ill-gotten riches due to Hunter's imaginative cons.
No wonder the first family moved Hunter into the White House for months and put him on Air Force One.
Is it now, "Keep Hunter close and self-important -- or else"?
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won" from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
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