The Washington Post reports:

Joe Biden intended to spend Friday talking about climate change and his long-standing support for the gay and lesbian community.

Instead, he was thrust into the center of the latest White House scandal — that President Trump allegedly urged the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden’s son Hunter.

Suddenly, Biden faced two dueling realities: The president he is hoping to defeat next year — and who he describes as morally unfit for office — is under scrutiny for behavior some view as treasonous. But the story is inextricably linked to Biden’s son, pushing one of the topics that Biden is least comfortable discussing into the spotlight.

The challenge of taking advantage of this political moment without becoming ensnared was evident by how Biden responded to the news Friday afternoon. First, he reacted defensively in an exchange with reporters in Iowa. Then later, in a formal statement from his campaign, he forcefully denounced Trump’s actions.

One of the reasons Biden took a long time to decide whether to get into the presidential race was over considerations of the attacks on his family that not only come under the bright lights of a national campaign but also from the bullying tactics that Trump has employed.

It also comes at a time when his son has become fodder for gossip pages. He divorced his wife amid charges of extramarital affairs, cocaine use and financial problems. He also began dating the widow of his brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015. After their separation, he married a woman in May that he had met a few weeks earlier.

Biden’s campaign earlier this year declined to say whether it had done a full vetting of Hunter, which campaigns sometimes do to prevent surprises. [Continue reading…]