David Weiss has been investigating Hunter Biden for several years, and after Joe Biden began his presidency, the Democratic administration made a point to leave Weiss in place. The Trump-appointed prosecutor was pursuing a case against the president’s son, but Joe Biden and Justice Department officials agreed that the right thing to do was to allow Weiss to continue his work.
Today, Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated Weiss from the role of a U.S. attorney investigating the president’s son to a special counsel investigating the president’s son. It’s ostensibly what Republicans wanted — a Trump-appointed prosecutor going after someone whose last name is Biden — but much of the GOP is complaining anyway.
It’s against this backdrop that The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman noted this afternoon:
“Many Republicans are sticking to the line that this appointment is somehow evidence that the Biden administration is helping Hunter Biden, but in private many are quite clear they know it isn’t a helpful development for the president. The optics are problematic for the White House.”
My point is not to pick on Maggie, whose observation has been echoed many times today by a great many observers. What I don’t understand, however, is why, exactly “the optics are problematic for the White House.”
In case this isn’t obvious, in political media, “optics” stories tend to refer to stories in which a political figure hasn’t done anything wrong, but who’s nevertheless found themselves facing unwelcome scrutiny for doing something that looks bad.
The trouble in this case, however, is that no one has credibly accused the president of much of anything.
To be sure, Hunter Biden’s legal future appears perilous. His plea deal with prosecutors has apparently collapsed, and his apparent upcoming trial leaves him facing real challenges.
But — and this is the important part — Hunter Biden is a private citizen with a famous last name. He does not work at the White House, and he never has. He is not now, and has never been, an elected official or a candidate for public office. He holds no position of public trust. He’s been accused of crimes, but despite Republican efforts to find evidence to the contrary, none of those crimes appear to relate to his father in any way.
With this in mind, the fact that Weiss was pursuing Hunter Biden yesterday, and is now pursuing Hunter Biden with a slightly different title today, doesn’t change much. So why exactly are these developments creating “optics” that are “problematic” for the White House?
To be sure, if there were evidence that the president or someone on his team intervened inappropriately in this case, that would certainly raise questions that would deserve a serious White House response. But given what we now know, that’s not the story. Rather, what we have is an instance in which the sitting president’s son is facing a special counsel prosecution, which is apparently a political problem for the White House because … well, I’m not altogether sure why. The fact of the matter is that many presidents have had members of their immediate family who were the source of consternation for one reason or another. Lyndon Johnson was embarrassed by his brother. Richard Nixon’s brother ran into some trouble, too. Jimmy Carter’s brother took an unfortunate amount of money from Libya. George H.W. Bush’s son — and George W. Bush’s brother — was caught up in a savings-and-loan controversy and had a remarkably messy personal life. Bill Clinton’s brother had a drug problem and spent time behind bars. Donald Trump’s sister faced a judicial conduct investigation over a tax fraud scheme. What did these relatives’ troubles have to do with their famous relatives? Not much. But apparently they represented problematic “optics.” If evidence emerges of Joe Biden having done something wrong — legally, ethically, or otherwise — in support of his son, that would certainly be of interest. But in the meantime, why would the White House look bad because a private citizen who has nothing to do with the White House continues to face the same investigation he’s been facing for years?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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