Hunter Biden's 15 minutes or more

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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As with the varied allegations against Donald Trump, discussion of the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden is hopelessly politicized. Yet at the business end of the plea deal announced last week in Biden's case is a successful prosecution of criminal activity. Justice is on a path to be done.

Under an agreement that still must be approved by a judge, President Joe Biden's son will plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes (for not having paid the government enough, a situation he's since remedied) and will avoid, with proper behavior, a felony gun charge. (He claimed on a federal form that he was not a user of controlled substances at the time he bought a gun. In fact, as stated in his 2021 memoir, he was addicted to crack cocaine. That substance is illegal because it ruins lives and families and supports further criminal activity, something the junior Biden could not have helped knowing the first time he tried it.)

The deal is not likely to result in jail time.

Whether this is the last justice that will or should apply in connection with Hunter Biden's activities is an open question. His attorney says a criminal probe that began in 2018 with investigation of his business dealings in China and Ukraine is now over. The leading prosecutor, however, says it's ongoing. And U.S. House Republicans who have lit upon the phrase "Biden crime family" with respect to alleged influence peddling can be expected to continue to see if they can find any reliable evidence to attach to it.

Whether the plea deal is considered justice also appears to depend on partisan leanings. An argument of Team Biden supporters is that Hunter Biden has faced consequences that are unusual for the nature of his crimes. People should not object, however, to a high standard for those in proximity to high office.

Meanwhile, Trump partisans and the conspiratorially minded complain that Hunter Biden's relatively easy go of it amounts to two-tiered justice compared with the attention given to Trump's activities.

While Trump remains innocent until proven guilty under the terms of the law and is due his days in court, the comparison is ludicrous. We are reminded of the 1986 movie "Crocodile Dundee," a fish-out-of-water comedy in which a stereotypical Australian bushman is unleashed on the stereotypical American urban wild. Unconcerned by a switchblade-wielding mugger, he declares: "That's not a knife." Then, pulling out the swordlike blade he carries: "That's a knife."

But such mirth only carries us so far. At bottom is the fact that a sitting president's son will be confirmed guilty of criminal acts, which is territory worthy of the nation's reflection — but hardly as much so as the fact that former president and current Republican front-runner Trump faces federal felony charges in connection with the handling of classified documents, New York state felony charges of falsifying business records in order to conceal information from voters in 2016, and possible charges in Georgia over attempts to unlawfully influence the 2020 election results. High-water marks in the history of the republic these are not. The Biden administration at least deserves credit for its attempts to limit conflicts of interest in a complicated situation.

The loaded question remains whether, with respect to influence peddling, Hunter Biden's smoke is Joe Biden's fire. Biden opponents would like to think so. If and when they produce corroboration, they will be taken seriously. Without it, they're on the kind of witch hunt their standard bearer so likes to write about with the caps-lock on.

"That guilt by association is a concept repugnant to Anglo-American notions of justice," according to an old article in the University of Chicago Law Review, "is explicable to some extent from the tacit assumption that 'it is of the very essence of our deep rooted notions of criminal liability that guilt be personal and individual.' "

The article notes, however, that such notions are not universal: "The attaching of guilt or responsibility for criminal acts upon the family or clan of the offender is a characteristic of both primitive societies and totalitarian states."

That kind of retribution is what Trump has promised — minus attempts to minimize conflicts of interest — should he be elected to a new term. Reflect on that.

And finally: Cashing in on the family name, which helped Hunter Biden make the money he neglected to sluice off sufficiently toward taxes but for which he is hardly the sole exemplar, is a time-honored tradition. Depending on the scale, it can be ignoble and unsavory. Also, legal.