Democrats want everyone in America to know that they have accepted Hunter Biden’s felony conviction. They’re screaming it from the rooftops: “No one is above the law! Observe how high-minded we are!”

Their motive, as usual, is politics and not some deep reverence for institutions and “norms.”
Biden’s conviction allows Democrats, or so they think, to justify the weaponization of justice against Donald Trump.

Of course, the Trump and Biden cases are different in significant ways. Trump is a political candidate for the highest office in the land. The stakes involved in Trump’s conviction, therefore, are enormous. Hunter Biden’s brush with “accountability,” on the other hand, won’t affect anyone outside of his family, supposing he isn’t pardoned by dear old dad, who has been conveniently left outside of the government’s crosshairs—though not for a want of evidence.

The tortuous channels through which money flowed to the Bidens from all corners of the earth; the anxious voicemails from “The Big Guy,” and threatening text messages from Hunter to foreign associates; none of this damning information was pertinent to Hunter’s gun trial so it was not aired. Instead, that trial was a study of Hunter Biden’s degenerate personal character.

The sordid pictures and testimony overshadowed the elephant in the room: the FBI’s quiet admission that the notorious laptop is real. This is the very laptop 51 intelligence officials labeled “Russian disinformation” to help Hunter’s dad get elected. There has been no contrition from those responsible for this great deception. To the contrary, they continue to peddle the lie. Like the Trump-Russia hoax and many others, the “Russian disinformation” lie has simply exploded, and the public is expected to nod and move on.

Hunter Biden’s conviction on gun charges, far from vindicating the rule of law, only raises more questions: Why is Hunter the only member of his family facing charges? Why hasn’t he been charged under the seldom and selectively enforced Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), like Paul Manafort was?

Democrats have mocked the “conspiracy theory” that Hunter Biden’s prosecution was orchestrated to create a false perception of impartial justice. But the favoritism that has been shown towards Hunter Biden, his family, and their allies is unequivocal. The Justice Department did not prosecute Biden until a pair of whistleblowers aired damning evidence that he was receiving favorable treatment, culminating in a sweeping immunity agreement that exploded in court last summer. When has the Justice Department ever shown such restraint in its pursuit of Trump?

That Hunter Biden was found guilty of something hardly disproves Trump’s argument about the weaponization of our government agencies. Whether or not Joe Biden gave direct orders to prosecute his rival—and, in all likelihood, he personally did not (have you seen the state of the man?) —such close coordination between partisans united in common interest is hardly necessary. Trump’s power to motivate his enemies, by now, is firmly established. He has been the target of a series of flagrant abuses since he entered politics, starting with the unwarranted FBI surveillance of his presidential campaign in 2016. His home was the target of an FBI raid. He is the target, now, of a veritable legal avalanche, the likes of which this nation has never seen.

The Hunter Biden case does not whitewash these years of corruption, nor does it remove the stain of politics from Trump’s recent felony conviction in left-leaning Manhattan. Unlike Biden’s conviction, Trump’s was not surprising. It was scripted by a partisan judge and prosecutor, and decided in a venue where his acquittal was impossible. When Democrats trumpet the “rule of law,” they’re talking to a skeptical public: a recent poll found that 58 percent of Americans believe Trump’s trial was politically motivated.

Hunter Biden is probably correct to argue that his trial was also politically motivated. It was essentially a public relations campaign to try to show the evenhandedness of the corrupt Justice Department. It would not have happened absent outside pressure from Republicans. But that is a testament to the degree to which the system was shielding Biden’s son to begin with. It cannot have been good for Hunter Biden’s sobriety that he has enjoyed the solicitous protection of the most powerful government on the planet. He is the Democrats’ scapegoat: he bears their dirty sins, which cannot escape public notice.

The Hunter Biden spectacle ought to be seen for what it is: a cynical distraction, and an attempt to normalize an assault on the rule of law while speaking in its name. Trump is now, for millions of people, the only hope of reclaiming a lawless government and establishing accountability, once more, between the people and their representatives.