Joseph Simonson of the Washington Free Beacon explains why the opening of Hunter Biden’s trial reminded some observers of a former Democratic president.
Hunter Biden’s attorney took a page out of former president Bill Clinton’s playbook on Monday, telling jurors that his client’s case hinges on what the definition of the word “is” is.
The troubled first son is accused of falsely answering a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives form when he purchased a handgun from a Delaware gun store in October 2018. Federal law requires firearms dealers to ask all would-be purchasers to fill out the form, which includes questions about one’s felony history or if he or she is an “unlawful user of, or addicted to” illegal drugs.
Hunter Biden’s years-long drug use is well documented, both through the contents of his abandoned laptop and his admission in his memoir that he was “smoking crack every 15 minutes” in the same year he purchased the gun. But Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell is arguing that Hunter Biden did not lie when he checked a box indicating he was not a drug user or addict, since he did not believe he was at the time he bought the gun.
“It does not say, ‘Have you ever been?’ It does not say, ‘Have you ever used?’” Lowell said, referencing the form. “He did not buy that gun knowing that he fit into a category of people who could not do so.”
Such a defense is reminiscent of Clinton’s, who told a grand jury in 1998 that he did not lie to his staff when he said that “there’s nothing going on between” him and his aide Monica Lewinsky, with whom he carried out a romantic affair. Clinton was eventually impeached by Congress over lying under oath and obstruction of justice.
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the—if the—if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement,” Clinton said.
