President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
President Joe Biden has stood by his son Hunter as he reportedly awaits possible criminal charges.
But the White House faces a complicated communications challenge if federal agents move forward.
One expert said the “best thing politically” for the president would be for his son to plead guilty.
President Joe Biden has stood by Hunter Biden and expressed pride in how his son has overcome his drug addiction even as possible criminal charges await him.
But the White House faces a complicated communications challenge if federal agents investigating Hunter Biden move forward with charges against him on tax crimes and a false statement on a gun application.
Biden’s likely response would be to try to “walk the line of being a father supporting his son while being the President who must not publicly criticize or challenge the indictment,” said Adam Goldberg, special associate counsel to former President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s, in an email to Insider.
“If Hunter disputes the charges, Biden’s answer to the question about whether he believes his son will need to be supportive while publicly expressing respect for the prosecutors and the court system – not an easy message to craft,” said Goldberg, who co-founded the strategic communications firm Trident DMG.
In a CNN interview that aired Tuesday, Biden responded for the first time to reports from the Washington Post that federal agents think they have enough evidence to charge Hunter. “I love him. He’s on a straight and narrow, and he has been for a couple years now,” Biden told CNN host Jake Tapper.
The US Attorney in Delaware, David C. Weiss, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, will decide whether to press charges. The White House on Thursday declined to comment on an ongoing investigation.
Experts say one thing the White House must not do is contact the Justice Department about the case.
“DOJ has standard processes for tax investigations, and this should be handled the same as any other tax investigation, free from even the appearance of political intervention,” said Walter Shaub, former of the Office of Government Ethics.
Goldberg said such communication would be “unthinkably unethical and stupid.” It’s possible that Attorney General Merrick Garland could give the White House Counsel a heads up “immediately” before an indictment, but that’s unlikely, he said. The White House is most likely to learn about an expedited indictment from Hunter or his lawyers, he said.
More than 30 Senate Republicans, in a letter to Garland last month, demanded that Weiss be extended special counsel protections to “investigate an appropriate scope of potentially criminal conduct.”
If there is a special counsel appointed, there would be a “hellish political fight” over who should be appointed and the investigation would likely be long and “ever-widening,” Goldberg said.
It would be easier for Biden politically to attack a special prosecutor or an independent counsel “because presidents have attacked them routinely,” Goldberg said, but that’s only a benefit if there’s an actual indictment. Right now, it’s much better for there not to be one, he said.
The fact that Weiss is a Trump appointee would potentially give Biden the political option of defending Hunter and criticizing the indictment, but the president would be unlikely to do that, he added.
“If there’s going to be an indictment, the best thing politically for Biden (though not necessarily for justice) would be for Hunter to plead guilty, which allows Biden to fully support him without risking being seen as undermining DOJ,” Goldberg said. “I can’t fathom political considerations playing into Hunter’s decision on that front (if there needs to be one), in part because I don’t think Biden would ever want Hunter to worry about that.”
Republicans are itching to investigate Hunter Biden if they win control of Congress in the midterm elections. Mark Corallo, a Republican and former Justice Department spokesman during the second Bush administration, told Insider the Hunter Biden investigation “reeks of politics” and blamed the national media for a “disgraceful lack of interest.”
But Eric Schultz, who served as deputy White House press secretary during the Obama administration, said Republicans had nothing to show for their previous Hunter Biden investigations the last time they had subpoena power.
“If Republicans want to continue down that road, I think it’s disgusting and cynical, especially given their approval of the last President’s kids profiteering while serving in White House positions – but I mostly think it’s a foolish use of their own time since we already know how the story ends,” he said.