Hilarity: Hunter Biden files an ethics complaint against MTG

We frequently see Hunter Biden’s name associated with the word “ethics” in various news articles, but it’s generally accompanied by the phrase “lack of.” Yet that didn’t stop the First Son’s attorneys from filing an ethics complaint against Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene this week. They petitioned the Office of Congressional Ethics on Friday to “decisively condemn and discipline” Greene after her recent presentation where she displayed sexually explicit (censored) photos from Hunter’s Laptop From Hell, showing Hunter naked and snorting drugs with alleged prostitutes. The attorneys don’t appear to be claiming that the photos aren’t real or that their client didn’t engage in such activity but instead were too obscene to be put on display in the People’s House. If the Office of Congressional Ethics finds the allegations to be valid they have the ability to transfer the complaint to the House Ethics Committee for action. (NY Post)

Hunter Biden’s lawyer on Friday demanded a congressional ethics watchdog review Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s conduct during a hearing earlier this week where she showed sexually explicit but censored photos of the first son with alleged prostitutes.

“This week, your colleague has lowered herself, and by extension the entire House of Representatives, to a new level of abhorrent behavior that blatantly violates House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct,” Abbe Lowell wrote in a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics, obtained by the Hill.

“If the OCE takes its responsibilities seriously, it will promptly and decisively condemn and discipline Ms. Greene for her latest actions,” the attorney wrote.

The complaint accuses Greene of “harassing and embarrassing” Hunter Biden. MTG did not respond to a request for comment by the Post.

What MTG did was clearly provocative and designed to raise some eyebrows while highlighting Hunter Biden’s dodgy history, but was it unethical? It would clearly be unethical (and almost certainly illegal) to sneak around and take pictures of someone when they were naked and engaged in sexual activity and then make those pictures public. But Hunter took those pictures himself and stored them on his laptop as trophies of his various “conquests.” You could make the argument that he never published them himself, so perhaps he intended them to be private, I suppose. But if that was his chief concern, he probably shouldn’t have abandoned the laptop at a repair shop.

As to the propriety of displaying the pictures in Congress, this looks like a complicated issue. First of all, the pictures were blurred to the point where they could be displayed on television, and they were. (With appropriate content warnings.) Also, rather than simply being displayed to embarrass the Bidens, they were offered in the context of being possible evidence of a crime. She was specifically referencing the Mann Act of 1910. While technically possible, prosecutions under the Mann Act in the modern era are almost never pursued if the woman is an adult and consented to the activity. The law is still invoked in cases of the sex trafficking of minors, however, with one of the most notable, recent convictions being that of Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021.

With all of that said it’s pretty much impossible to ignore the underlying hypocrisy of Hunter Biden and his attorneys here. What is more “unethical” in this context? Displaying pictures of actual activity in the halls of Congress or being the person who was snorting crack off of the backsides of hookers? Cocaine is still a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act and prostitution is still illegal in many places, though whether or not it really should be is a debate we can save for another day. I will agree that substance abuse and addiction are terrible problems that afflict many people, so you can feel some sympathy for Hunter’s issues if you wish. (And those are issues he may not be fully over if cocaine-gate went down the way many people suspect.)

This complaint raises one other question that’s worth keeping in mind. Hunter Biden has been trying to argue for several years now that the laptop is “fake” or wasn’t his. It’s a ridiculous complaint, but it’s something he has said. So if that wasn’t his laptop, who took and saved all of those pictures of him? This ethics complaint seems to be a clear admission that the pictures are real and they are indeed actual photos of Hunter Biden.

Hunter Biden probably just sank his own last line of defense. But while MTG’s decision to air the blurred pictures in Congress may be questionable, I think it would be a severe stretch for the Office of Congressional Ethics to recommend any disciplinary actions against her as a result of this.