Republicans should, in theory, be relieved and vindicated over Hunter Biden's conviction on federal gun charges. But many of them are not satisfied, and are alleging it's all a vast government conspiracy to protect against the real crimes committed by President Joe Biden, wrote Greg Sargent for The New Republic.
And there's a reason for that, he argued: the guilty verdict is actually causing their whole "sleazy scam" of attacking the criminal justice system to fall apart.
"Incredibly, they are declaring that this guilty verdict slapped on Biden’s son also proves that the system is rigged against Trump. Which reveals something essential about how dependent the MAGA worldview is on elaborate fantasies about the movement’s alleged persecution," wrote Sargent. These reactions range from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) criticizing the gun law under which he was charged, to MAGA student activist Charlie Kirk calling it a "fake trial," to former Trump adviser Stephen Miller claiming, "This is all about protecting Joe Biden and only Joe Biden."
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What they all really mean, wrote Sargent, is, "How the heck are we going to raise money off of this? The law being applied equally to the president’s son is an utter disaster for us!"
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Paradoxically, Hunter Biden's conviction set back the GOP cause, wrote Sargent, because "The enormous contortions required to portray the justice system as rigged at every turn show yet again that pretty much everything the MAGA right is saying about these matters is about laying a pretext for Trump, once back in office, to launch prosecutions of Biden and Democrats without cause, under the guise of tit-for-tat payback for something that wasn’t actually done to Trump and his followers."
"The sum total of all this monumental deception is that Trump and his followers are being massively victimized by our justice system, and that only carrying out mass prosecutions against the opposition will set that right," wrote Sargent. "That the president’s son was found guilty by a jury of his peers who evaluated actual evidence presented by prosecutors — just as happened to Trump in his hush money trial — is kryptonite to this sleazy scam. Nothing is more devastating to the MAGA worldview than the idea that the justice system is actually functioning fairly."
