Here's A Question Nobody's Asked

It dawned on me in the middle of last night that normally, for the person indicted, a federal indictment is never a surprise. I did a quick search and discovered that pre-indictment is a legal specialty. For instance, at the Hedding Law Firm, which specializes in federal criminal defense,

If you feel that you are under investigation by the feds, you definitely want to get an attorney involved with your case immediately. Never a good idea to try to handle it yourself. Now's not the time to pinch pennies and not hire an attorney immediately.

Basically, pre-indictment intervention has to do with before the feds indict you, which is their filing document where they're filing criminal federal charges against you. You can intervene and you can use an attorney to either investigate the case to show that you're innocent or to investigate the case to try to get information on your behalf to either mitigate or reduce the charges.

We must assume that Hunter hired Abbe Lowell, one of the most prominent federal criminal defense attorneys, to oversee his whole case, and up to this past Thursday, this would have included extensive pre-indictment discussions with the prosecutors over the past six months. Neither the date of the indictment nor the specific charges would have been any sort of surprise to Hunter or his legal team, but this leaves aside what must also have been a heads-up from Attorney General Garland to the White House.

But if the indictment wasn't a surprise to the White House, why have they been unable to issue much of a statement? They've had weeks or months to prepare, but they're simply repeating what they've been saying when the charges against Hunter were likely to result in just a diversion agreement:

The White House reiterated President Biden’s pledge that he would not pardon his son, Hunter Biden, if he is convicted amid his ongoing legal battles.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president had not changed his mind on the statement in the wake of new tax crime charges brought against the younger Biden in California, when reporters asked.

. . . “Nothing has changed,” Jean-Pierre said Friday during a gaggle aboard Air Force One en route to Las Vegas. “That is still the case.”

. . . “I’m going to be really careful and not comment on this and refer you to Department of Justice or my colleagues at the White House Counsel,” she added.

Except that neither the Justice Department nor the White House Counsel will have anything to say, either. On the other hand, Hunter's own remarks, made on a podcast prior to Thursday's indictment, likely indicate, first, that the indictment wasn't a surprise, and second, the actual level of concern, if not panic, among the Bidens:

"What they're trying to do is they're trying to kill me, knowing that it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle, and so therefore destroying a presidency in that way," he said, adding that they want him to relapse to drug abuse.

"It's not about me," he continued, adding that "these people are just sad, very, very sick people that have most likely just faced traumas in their lives that they've decided that they are going to turn into an evil that they decide that they're going to inflict on the rest of the world".

. . . Mr Biden added: "I'm gonna survive it clean and sober, is because I am not gonna let these [expletive], OK, use me as just another example of why people in recovery are never gonna be OK, never to be trusted, they're all degenerates."

Let's recall, though, that every indication is that Hunter, who had been living in the White House for nearly a year, was eased out over this past summer after the incident of the baggie in a cubby. My surmise is that the Secret Service laid it out to Joe that there were simply limits to its ability to cover for Hunter's drug use there. There's been an ongoing subtext for quite some time that nearly everyone has been refusing to recognize -- evidence that Hunter is nowhere near clean and sober has been lurking in the wings all along, and any new episode will further damage the family's credibility.

Hunter's assessment that the indictment, in the wake of Beau's death, is something Joe will be unable to handle, especially in the context of a troubled reelection campaign, a bad economy, an open border, and two wars, is almost certainly correct. Something is going to have to be worked out, but Joe is currently in denial about it.

It seems to me that the clearest option will be for Joe to withdraw from candidacy in 2024 while pardoning Hunter, although further revelations from the House investigations may either hasten this or add other complications to a whole separate deal for Joe that could even include resignation.