The president’s son, Biden, is on trial for illegal weapons purchases made when he was addicted to narcotics. The trial has witnessed a frenzy of testimony and evidence detailing his drug use in sordid detail, and the jury started deliberations late on Monday.
President Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis highlighted Hunter Biden’s current prosecution as an example of an all-too-common systemic drug addiction, focusing more on what it says about the dangers of illegal narcotics and the pressure of scrutiny than on its political ramifications.
“Hunter Biden’s legal case is, at its root, a story about the toxic, careless choices made by a drug addict,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed Monday. “It’s about the fact that addicts weave tragedy into their own lives and into the lives of those around them. Addicts don’t think about other people; they think about themselves. And they lie — that’s how they supply their addiction.”
The president’s son, Biden, is on trial for illegal weapons purchases made when he was addicted to narcotics. The trial has witnessed a frenzy of testimony and evidence detailing his drug use in sordid detail, and the jury started deliberations late on Monday.
Davis recalled her early struggles with heroin addiction. She gave Biden the impression that she was sympathetic by expressing that she knew “what it’s like to live under a glaring, unforgiving spotlight that never dims.”
She encouraged the country to show him the same sympathy, seeing him not as a political figure but as a victim of drug addiction ravaged by past mistakes.
“There are a lot of Hunter Bidens in this world, people who fell in way over their heads, who long for someone to believe they can recover and construct their lives differently,” she wrote. “You just don’t hear about them on the evening news.”
Davis described Biden’s situation as one of tragedy, where a man of “every advantage and opportunity” still fell victim to drug addiction.
“How even though he has worked hard on getting and staying clean, his past mistakes and sins follow him, collide with him and demand to be addressed,” she wrote.
President Biden has supported his son throughout the trial, and first lady Jill Biden has repeatedly attended court in person, though the president has made clear that he will not interfere in the case in any way. When asked if he would ever consider pardoning his son last week, he said no.
In the president, Davis saw a man torn between protecting his child and running a country. In Hunter Biden, she saw a man who should be allowed to move on from his past.
“Addicts, like everyone else, have to be held accountable for their lies. But being held accountable under the judgmental eyes of the world means you’re defined by your sins, not by the person you’re trying to become,” she wrote. “Moving on is a grace bestowed on others, not you.”