But the personal toll on a president who has already suffered the deaths of two children and has struggled for years with his son’s drug addiction could be far more severe.
“What normal person could watch their family’s suffering play out in a courtroom before the world, and not be torn apart,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “And who wouldn’t be devastated to see their loved ones, not just their son but their daughter-in-law and granddaughter, testify and relive some of the most painful moments of their lives?”
Axelrod added: “I don’t think voters are going to hold Biden responsible for his son’s drug addiction or misconduct, but I think the real question is how does it affect him and his family?”
The dramatic and often sordid trial, in which prosecutors alleged that Hunter had abused illegal drugs in 2018 despite a declaration on paper that he had not, took place in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Two of President Biden’s former daughters-in-law, Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and Beau Biden’s widow Hallie Biden, testified for the prosecution. Naomi Biden, Hunter’s daughter and Biden’s granddaughter, testified for the defense.
The president issued a statement in support of his son on Tuesday, shortly before speaking at a gun control event.
“As I said last week, I am president, but I am also a father,” the statement said. “Jill and I love our son and are so proud of the man he has become today. Many families who have had a loved one battle addiction understand the sense of pride they feel seeing their loved one overcome challenges, become recovered and become so strong and resilient.”
The president has stressed his determination to avoid any appearance of unfairly influencing a case brought by his Justice Department and barely attended the trial itself, but his family was in frequent attendance and prosecutors on Monday urged jurors not to let them sway the case.
“All of this is not evidence,” prosecutor Leo Wise said in his closing argument, waving to a packed courtroom that included First Lady Jill Biden, who attended nearly every day of the trial. “The people sitting in the stands are not evidence.”
The president visited his Wilmington home several times as the trial progressed, being there on the first day of the trial before leaving for an official visit to France and returning Sunday after his return to the United States.
After the verdict was handed down on Tuesday, the White House abruptly announced that Biden would fly to Wilmington that afternoon before departing for a summit in Italy on Wednesday. The White House’s daily briefing, usually conducted by press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, was also canceled at the last minute on Tuesday.
Hunter Biden was found guilty of all charges on Tuesday after a jury accepted prosecutors’ arguments that he falsely represented on a federal gun purchase application that he wasn’t using or addicted to illegal drugs, then illegally possessed a gun for 11 days.
House Republicans have been broadly investigating Hunter and the Biden family for months, alleging that he used his father’s position as vice president to unfairly benefit others. That investigation has largely stalled.
Several Republican lawmakers on Tuesday said they continue to believe Hunter Biden committed financial wrongdoing, but that the gun crimes were minor at best.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a Trump ally who has frequently attacked Hunter Biden, rejected the trial’s findings: “Hunter Biden’s gun conviction is kind of ridiculous, to be honest with you,” Gaetz wrote on X, short for “to be honest with you.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another staunch conservative, posted on X that “hunters may deserve to go to prison for something, but they shouldn’t be jailed for buying a gun,” adding that “there are millions of marijuana users in this country who own guns, but they shouldn’t be jailed for buying or possessing a gun in violation of current law.”
Some Democrats say they may sympathize with Hunter Biden’s fight against drug abuse because addiction has hurt families across America.
President Biden expressed pride in Hunter’s new stability, including in his marriage to his second wife, Melissa Cohen Biden.
But an additional challenge lies ahead now that the president has said he will not pardon his son, meaning Hunter Biden will now face sentencing, including possible prison time, and his legal team hopes for a more lenient sentence given that he is a first-time offender convicted of a nonviolent crime.
Additionally, Hunter Biden faces a new trial in September on tax evasion charges.
It is no secret among President Biden’s aides that his son’s mental health is a deep concern for the president.
Biden aides have frequently expressed reluctance to discuss his son’s issues with the president, and some advisers have tried to limit Hunter’s public appearances in the past, angering him and his aides.
The president has long tried to keep his son close, and when news broke a few years ago that Hunter had been discharged from the Navy Reserves for cocaine use, Joe Biden responded with a quick message to the family.
“It couldn’t be better,” he wrote in an email reviewed by The Washington Post. “It’s time to move on. With love, Dad.”
According to Hunter’s own account and memoir, the president offered his son unconditional love, sometimes visiting him at home to tell him he needed help and repeatedly telling him he loved him no matter what. Biden contacts his son daily, calling him and texting him when he doesn’t answer, friends and associates of the president said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters.
Biden’s advisers are keenly aware of the tragedies he has endured in his life: His wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident shortly after he was first elected to the Senate in 1972, and his son Beau, then 46, died of brain cancer in 2015.
“This is an even heavier burden for a man who has already experienced great loss and tragedy,” Axelrod said. “It’s going to take incredible strength to carry this burden, given the other burdens he has, including the presidency and being a candidate.”
Some Democrats and Republicans questioned whether the lawsuit would have been filed if Hunter wasn’t the president’s son.
“I think the average American who paid taxes, like Hunter Biden, probably would have been indicted,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-La.) recently told Huffington Post. “But I don’t think the average American would have been indicted on a gun issue. I don’t think anything good would come out of that.”
The Trump campaign, like other Republicans, sought to focus Tuesday’s election on money Hunter Biden made from overseas business deals rather than on a conviction.
“This trial is nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden crime family, who made tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine,” Caroline Leavitt, national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement.
While Hunter often profited from the family name throughout his career as a businessman, no substantial evidence has emerged that Joe Biden played an active role in or benefited from those deals.
Hunter’s supporters say he is now trying to overcome his battle with addiction by acknowledging his mistakes and making amends.
His 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” was somewhat confessional, a point prosecutors made strongly during the trial. In recent months, Hunter Biden has pushed back against the Republican investigation and taken a more public stance.
The September tax trial, like the one that just concluded, is being led by special counsel David Weiss and could result in similarly embarrassing moments for Hunter and the Biden family.
At the hearing, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, prosecutors are expected to lay out a range of ways Hunter spent his money, much of which, according to the indictment, was spent on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, luxury cars, clothing and other personal items — everything except taxes.”
Hunter’s lawyers argue that Hunter paid back all his taxes three years ago and, as in the gun case, prosecutors never built a case against the public.
That trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 5, just two months before Election Day.
