Charles Huckelbury lives in Henniker.

It took the jury only three hours to convict Hunter Biden, compared to nineteen hours of deliberation for Donald Trump’s jury. Biden was convicted of three felonies, in contrast to the thirty-four crimes committed by the ex-president. In both trials, the relatively quick verdicts indicated that the evidence was overwhelming and that there was little or no disagreement in the jury room.

The similarities in the trials include the decision of both Biden and Trump not to testify in their own defense. We are familiar with Trump’s excuses, whereas Biden made no attempt to explain his choice. More significantly, Biden did not attack the judge, his family, his law clerk, the jury panel, or the criminal justice system in general. This is an interesting point when we examine Trump’s reaction immediately after being found guilty. He huffed and puffed about a “rigged” system that was out to get him. Biden’s reaction was notably low-key, with no attempt to blame anyone else.

Both Hunter Biden and Trump offered up an identical defense: “I didn’t do it.” The not-guilty pleas of both men fell on deaf ears in the jury rooms, which surprised no one when the juries came back and said, “Yes, you did.”

Soon after the verdict against his son was announced, President Biden issued a statement in which he said that although he was unhappy with the outcome, he would accept the results. More to the point, he also said he respected “the process.” That is, he had no complaints about how his son had been treated by our judicial system. His objectivity was confirmed during an interview with juror #10, who in a subsequent interview said that there was nothing political about the jury’s deliberations. That same juror also reminded us that “Nobody is above the law.”

To emphasize that point, the president later addressed a gun safety group, where he articulated various steps his administration had taken to reduce the incidents of gun violence in the country and pointed to a drastic drop in violent crime, murder in particular. He did not blame the Department of Justice for his son’s conviction and actually restated his support for universal background checks, the same law that Hunter Biden was convicted of violating. Absent was any suggestion, from either the president or congressional Democrats, that Biden junior was the victim of a rigged system.

Then we have Donald Trump. His fan base, Fox News, and political sycophants chimed in unison that his trial was a political hit job, brought only to keep him from winning the next presidential election. Even the jury pool was tainted with those nefarious Democrats from New York. Trump himself warned that the DOJ would soon be coming for his supporters as well.

How then can two criminal trials reach the same result and yet be the products of a corrupt criminal justice system? If we examine the litany of lies and character assassination Trump’s supporters find so comforting, we need look no further for an explanation than Marjorie Taylor Greene’s pronouncement at Trump’s Las Vegas rally.

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When addressing the idea of supporting a convicted felon in this year’s election, Ms. Greene did not hesitate. She said that she would have no problem with such a candidate because she worshipped a convicted felon, presumably Jesus. The sheer audacity of such a remark is simultaneously stunning and offensive. We have seen Trump cast himself as the martyr going to his fate for the benefit of mankind, but even he has never overtly compared himself with Jesus, the same Jesus who insisted that we turn the other cheek and love each other.

The country is only a few months away from the most important national election in our history, and the choice becomes clearer with every passing day. Even if we disagree with the results of a particular criminal trial, the process is as good as it’s likely to get and superior to any other model we have seen.

How refreshing it is to see Hunter Biden and his dad accept the recent verdict and try to move forward. And how frightening it is to see and hear Donald Trump and his minions promise only retribution and destruction.