Hunter Comes Home to Roost – WSJ

One hazard of political campaigns is the unseen junction a key moment that nobody recognizes at the time. Such a moment came for Democrats on April 19, via a letter to Congress about the federal probe into Joe Biden s son Hunter.

Team Biden might be forgiven for ignoring the missive. Hunter s legal team was quietly negotiating with U.S. Attorney David Weiss, working to close his probe with no charges. The sordid laptop aside, the Biden circle had good reason to believe the drama would soon be over, that Americans would (again) be denied further details of the Biden family business.

Instead, the letter introduced the country to the first of two Internal Revenue Service agents who d been tossed from the Hunter investigation after flagging irregularities. Their whistleblower testimony blew open the ugly details of Hunter s foreign business escapades. Follow-up interviews suggested Joe s tacit assistance. The Justice Department came under fire. Hunter s plea deal fell apart. Mr. Weiss obtained indictments against him. Yet to come: Hunter s trial proceedings, a possible Hunter contempt of Congress citation, and a possible Joe Biden impeachment.

That April day was in retrospect the moment for the Biden team and Democrats more broadly to reconsider the wisdom of a re-election campaign. The president was already beginning to sag under polls that show sweeping dissatisfaction with his job performance and age. Hunter has since become another big drag on the president s hope for a second term.

So far, the Biden campaign and the media remains in full denial, insisting the story is a political nonstarter so long as House Republicans fail to prove Joe profited from Hunter s largess. That misses the Burisma board for the political trees. The Hunter damage comes from the stench of family influence peddling, the intersection of it with Mr. Biden s office, and the potential for the hits to keep coming.

via www.wsj.com

Kimberley A. Strassel