Historic scandals take a dangerous path

In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) employed the "nuclear option," changing the rules to allow cloture on executive branch nominations and most judicial nominations (excluding the Supreme Court) with a simple majority of 51 votes instead of 60. At the time, pundits warned that what goes around comes around.

In 2017, Senate Republicans extended the nuclear option to Supreme Court nominations and, to great uproar, took every advantage of that opportunity. The lesson is simple: Once a strong-arm precedent is set, we tend to see it repeated with each cyclical power shift.

I mention that because I think our recent spate of tit-for-tat political prosecutions is leading us down the wrong road. With both Donald Trump and Hunter Biden now convicted of felonies, the prospect of continued political prosecutions looms large. The laws of entropy would predict that the situation will continue to deteriorate until we, the public, accept the trade-off between the appearance of a failed third-world state and the expansion of prosecutorial immunity for elected officials. That’s not good.

People inside the Beltway recognize that Hunter Biden is a sad guy who struggles with personal demons, but they see him as just another in a long line of figures who have availed themselves of the privileges of power by association. He’s not the first family member to do so and will not likely be the last.

Family members of high officials who receive perks and favors is a longstanding tradition. A few get into trouble, but being charged with felonies seems to be a more recent trend. In my lifetime, Donald Nixon, brother of President Richard Nixon, was involved in several business controversies, including a loan from Howard Hughes and questions about potential influence peddling. A few years later, Billy Carter, the younger brother of President Jimmy Carter and a notoriously comical character, accepted a loan of $220,000 from the Libyan government, which raised concerns about conflicts of interest.

Hugh Rodham, brother of Hillary Clinton, was involved in a scandal when he allegedly accepted $400K to lobby for presidential pardons. Roger Clinton, the half-brother of President Bill Clinton, was convicted of cocaine distribution in 1985 and served a prison sentence before the Clinton administration. As his brother left office, Roger received a presidential pardon. Both scandals were quickly forgotten.

Neil Bush, son of 41 and brother of 43, accepted the offer of a seat on the Silverado Savings and Loan board while his dad was in office and found himself in the middle of the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s. Silverado collapsed, and Neil was accused of conflicts of interest. While he faced no criminal charges, he did face civil penalties and was tortured in the press for a news cycle or two. I met Neil a couple of times at political events and found him to be a quiet, modest guy. I won’t pretend to know what he did, but he didn’t strike me as a scoundrel–and I’ve met a few at such events.

Those happenings are recent, but family patronage has been with us since the beginning. Bushrod Washington served on the United States Supreme Court from 1798 to 1829 and was just coincidently George Washington's nephew. John Adams nominated him, but I can’t imagine that George’s coattails didn’t hurt.

As for Mr. Trump, those who can hold two thoughts in their heads at the same time don’t find it difficult to believe that a hard-charging business person would be guilty of posting a personal (or arguably political) cost in the expense column of his business. At the same time, it’s hard to ignore transparently political motivations for the prosecution, given the fact that District Attorney Alvin Bragg (and others) campaigned on pledges to legally pursue the former President.

At this point, speculation surrounding Trump's conviction centers around the prospect of having a felon serve in high office. While that’s unprecedented at the presidential level, we need only look back to John Francis Fitzgerald, AKA “Honey Fitz,” who served as a U.S. Representative from 1895 to 1901 and later served two terms as the Mayor of Boston.

During his tenure as a U.S. Representative, Fitzgerald faced accusations related to corruption and election fraud and was convicted and sentenced to a short term in jail for ballot tampering in a local election. Fitzgerald famously continued to serve as a U.S. Representative from jail, but that later became a footnote to his legacy. Honey Fitz is more famous for being both the grandfather of President John F. Kennedy and Great Grandfather of the present independent contender, Robert Kennedy Junior.