Opinion content—editorials, columns and guest commentaries—is created independent of news reporting and is exclusive to subscribers.President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, left, attend the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 10, 2023, in Washington.
McCarthy encapsulated an argument made by many Republicans in the wake of the plea deal offered to Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges to satisfy what prosecutors called a “willful failure” to pay some $300,000 in income tax , and agreed to a pretrial diversion agreement that meant, in essence, that he admitted to a federal gun possession charge but did not have to formally plead guilty.
So while McCarthy is of course free to link the two for political benefit, when he does so, he erodes trust in the rule of law. Republicans, of course, argue that Democrats do the same thing when what the right sees as their surrogates in the left-leaning media target Supreme Court justices whose point of view does not match their own.