After Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict, Donald Trump could try to reach his rival Joe Biden, fiercely attached to his family, through his son. But the strategy is not without risk.
The Republican camp reacted quickly on Tuesday, after a jury in Wilmington, Delaware, found the youngest son of his Democratic rival guilty of illegal possession of a firearm in 2018, against a backdrop of crack addiction.
Without going into the substance of the case, the 77-year-old billionaire’s team estimated that the affair was “nothing other than a way to divert attention from the real crimes of the Biden family”.
Republicans have long sought to tarnish the 81-year-old Democratic candidate with his son’s misfortunes, notably his questionable dealings in China and Ukraine.
Although Tuesday’s verdict “only concerns his son”, Donald Trump “will try to make it a story involving the president”, predicts Julian Zelizer, professor at Princeton University, to AFP.
The fact remains that it will now be more difficult for Donald Trump, recently convicted in New York, to accuse his rival of using the entire American judicial system for political purposes, since this same judicial system has just convicted Hunter Biden.
The 2020 debate
With this verdict, Joe Biden could also “attract the sympathy of the many American families who have children who cause them problems,” believes political scientist Wendy Schiller.
Asked last Wednesday about the affair, Donald Trump himself spoke at length about the case of his brother Fred Trump Jr., who died in 1981 at the age of 42 from alcoholism.
“She was the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen.” Everything was perfect. But he had an addiction,” he told Fox News.
The Republican’s entourage also remembers that in 2020, during the debate between him and Joe Biden, attacking his rival’s younger son did not work.
The Democrat scored points when, turning away from Donald Trump and staring into the camera, he said he was “proud” of a son capable of having “overcome” his addiction.
Challenging pace
The impact on Joe Biden’s campaign could, if there is one, be more diffuse and psychological.
Until the election, the octogenarian president will be subjected to a rhythm that is as taxing as possible for his body, but also for his mind.
However, Joe Biden, who assured in a press release that he would “always be there” for his son, did not hesitate to disrupt his schedule to join him on Tuesday in Wilmington, even though he had only just returned from a trip to France, and that he returns to Italy on Wednesday for the G7 summit.
The setbacks of the youngest son are for Joe Biden a painful reminder of the ordeals his family went through, firstly the death in 1972 of his first wife and their baby daughter, in a car accident which Hunter and his older brother survived. Beautiful.
Then the death in 2015 of Beau, this adored son, from brain cancer. The Democrat had been shaken to the point of contemplating suicide, while Hunter, with an already tormented personality, had descended into alcohol and drugs after the death of his brother.
This was recalled during the trial in the most sordid details, and even if Joe Biden did not attend the hearings in person, how can we believe that this very protective grandfather was not affected when Hunter Biden’s daughter , his granddaughter, therefore, came to testify?
“I don’t think voters are going to hold Joe Biden responsible for his son’s addiction or behaviors. But I think the real question is what impact this will have on him and his family,” David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s former strategist, told the Washington Post.