Jonathan Turley is at it again, this time claiming criminal tendencies run in Joe Biden’s family in his post titled ‘Before Joe, James and Hunter, There Was Great-Great-Grandfather Moses.’ Turley puts forth this claim by focusing on an incident from the 1860s involving Biden’s great-great-grandfather, Moses J. Robinette. The historian discovered that Robinette was found guilty of attempted murder after a violent encounter during the Civil War.
In what seems like an attempt to connect unrelated strings, Turley equates Robinette’s case with a series of scandals he associated with the Biden lineage, including the plagiarism scandal of the President and the controversies surrounding his son, Hunter Biden.
Turley’s assertion that such scandals constitute coercion of ‘*natural selection*’ has been met with a flurry of criticism, prompting him to clarify that he wasn’t implying a genetic propensity to crime. Turley argues the reference he made was intended to highlight the Bidens’ alleged long-standing knack for dealing with scandal rather than a predisposition to committing crime.
However, attempts to connect the great-great-grandfather’s alleged crime from over 150 years ago to the present day, tossed around alongside a comparison with Hillary Clinton’s infamous Vince Foster conspiracy theory, has provoked a response from many professional circles as reaching.
This is not an isolated instance for Turley. His rigorous analysis and prolific interpretations of the US law have repeatedly brought him into the spotlight, including during George Zimmerman’s trial for Trayvon Martin’s death, with Turley being a firm supporter of Zimmerman’s self-defense standpoint. Now there seems to be a flip in stance where Biden’s ancestor’s self-defense claim is concerned.
Overall, Turley appears to be making a perplexing comparison in his attempt to portray Biden, his son, brother, and ancestors as scandal-flaunting criminals.
Recounting Biden’s great-great-grandfather’s incident during the civil war, and the subsequent pardon by President Lincoln, Turley’s critique tends to take a political turn. He perceives Robinette’s argument for service to the country and allegiance as merely a ploy by an active ‘**political ally**’.
However, with Turley’s sweeping claims about the Biden family and his liberal interpretations of the law, it becomes increasingly evident that facts are arguably becoming more casualties than substantiating evidence in the realm of news cycle narratives.
For a deeper dive into Turley’s perspective, you can visit his posts at Jonathan Turley and for an alternate perspective, Above the Law provides a critical analysis of Turley’s viewpoint.