Two weeks, two big trials, two convictions. After Donald Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records at the end of last month, Hunter Biden, son of Joe, was convicted on Tuesday of buying and owning a gun while being a user of crack cocaine.
The rightwing media had howled in anguish when a jury ruled that the former US president was guilty of 34 felony charges: commentators claiming that the justice system was rigged, that the conviction was political persecution, and that Joe Biden had wielded undue influence in Trump being prosecuted.
Surely then, the Fox Newses and Breitbarts of the world would be similarly outraged by Hunter Biden’s conviction?
Nope.
“The facts were simple, the law was clear and the evidence of guilt can only be described as overwhelming,” Gregg Jarrett, an analyst and commentator for Fox News, wrote on the channel’s website, in a piece which championed the fairness and rigor of the American legal system.
“As it turns out, even a privileged and coddled Biden must abide by the rule of law.”
That was a far cry from Jarrett’s take on the judiciary 13 days earlier, when Trump was convicted in Manhattan.
“Donald Trump did not lose on Thursday,” Jarrett wrote, incorrectly.
“Our once venerated legal system did. And, by extension, all Americans lost something precious. Because the failure of justice is a failure of the people.”
In a 1,000-word outpouring of woe, Jarrett repeated Trump’s – now provably false – claims that no crime was committed, adding “the ideals of a fair trial and an impartial jury faded into a figment of our Founders’ imaginations”.
“The tragic coda to the Trump trial is that Americans can no longer trust our system of justice,” Jarrett wrote solemnly.
Other Fox News personalities similarly revised their opinion of the US legal system.
Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host, had been outraged after Trump was found guilty, decrying “smoke and mirrors” and claiming “we have gone over a cliff in America”.
“This is a new era in America, and I think it goes against the ilk of who we are as Americans and our faith in the criminal justice system,” Pirro said of Trump’s conviction on 30 May.
She was of a different mind on Tuesday.
“In the end this jury of ordinary people from Delaware were not intimidated by [the Biden] family, and they recognize that this was a clearcut case and that clearly no one is above the law,” Pirro said.
Speaking to rightwing channel Newsmax, Alan Dershowitz, a prominent lawyer and commentator who was part of Trump’s legal team during the then president’s first impeachment trial, did a similar flip-flop.
“Trump was convicted of a made-up charge; there’s nothing to the case,” Dershowitz said.
“I still can’t figure out what the actual conviction is based on. On the other hand, Hunter Biden was convicted of a real crime.”
Away from the doublethink, a new narrative was developing: that the Biden guilty verdict was actually evidence of some sort of cover-up.
Many on the right wing claimed that the conviction on gun offenses was an attempt to distract from Republicans’ years-long, unproven conspiracy theory of corruption by both Hunter and Joe Biden.
Republicans in the House began an investigation into the Biden family in January 2023, with the idea being that Biden benefited from his son’s business dealings in Ukraine. After nearly 18 months of investigation, Republicans have not found any evidence that the president was involved in any wrongdoing.
Republicans have accused Biden of weaponizing the justice system against Trump – an allegation the Hunter Biden guilty verdict would seem to contradict. But that didn’t stop conservative commentators from diving into the issue.
“Hunter Biden guilty. Yawn,” Charlie Kirk, the rightwing radio host and founder of Turning Point USA, wrote on X.
“The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched. This is a fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’ Don’t fall for it.”
Jack Posobiec, a far-right activist who hosts a video show on X, said in a post: “They went after Hunter on his gun stuff to make you overlook all his Ukraine stuff.”
Posobiec did not elaborate on the “Ukraine stuff”. But Breitbart trod a similar line, claiming that Biden’s conviction “allows the left to claim ‘no one is above the law’, while distracting from the much more serious allegations against the first son – and his father”.
It has been a whirlwind few days for the rightwing media: from howling at the injustice of the justice system, to celebrating the justice system. Now the claim is that, actually, the justice system might be bad after all: and the Hunter Biden verdict is just a cover-up.
Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, perhaps put it best.
“The new rightwing line that Joe Biden rigged the trial to put his son in prison,” Gertz wrote, “replaces the old rightwing line that Joe Biden was rigging the trial to keep his son out of prison.”
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