CNN’s Paula Reid Makes Solid Defense Of Hunter Biden — That Somehow Includes Saying ‘Ew! Of Course This Guy Did Something Wrong!’
CNN senior legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid made a pretty solid defense of Hunter Biden that somehow included accusing him of “depraved acts” and saying people look at him and say “EW! Of course this guy did something wrong!”
News broke Thursday afternoon that Special Counsel Davis Weiss has secured a grand jury indictment against Hunter Biden on three charges related to his purchase of a firearm at a time when, according to his own book, he was in the throes of active substance abuse.
Reid was part of the panel covering the news on Thursday’s edition of CNN News Central, and made an oddly backhanded defense that contrasted the photos and videos of “depraved acts” with the fact that after five years of investigation, relatively little was uncovered:
BORIS SANCHEZ: I think Republicans, it’s fair to say, are eager to muddy the waters when it comes to of legal issues and anything related potentially without evidence so far to the president.
PAULA REID: Yeah. And when you take this in the political arena as opposed to the legal arena, it’s not that hard to do with Hunter Biden. The Internet is littered with images of the president’s son engaging in what I think most people would say are depraved acts.
He went through a time clearly in his life where he was heavily addicted to drugs. He was engaging with prostitutes. He was holding weapons, posing for photos during all of this. Those are all over the Internet.
But sometimes it’s easy to conflate those photos, right, with the evidence that criminal prosecutors believe can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. And after investigating for five years, they were only willing to sort of engage in a plea deal for tax charges and potentially gun charges that a lot of experts have suggested would not necessarily be brought against just anyone. They are not commonly brought and that his team believes could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
So there’s no doubt that this is a deeply flawed person. And there are photos everywhere that politically most voters would look at that and say, “Of course, this guy must have done something wrong! Ew!” But when prosecutors had five years to investigate, a Trump appointed prosecutor, this is what they came up with, tax charges and a gun charge.
BORIS SANCHEZ: There’s a difference between scandal and crime.
PAULA REID: Exactly.
Watch the clip above CNN News Central.
