After five years investigating the nefarious deeds of Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, the Department of Justice came up with just two misdemeanor charges for late tax filings and offered a sweet deal for illegal gun possession that will keep the culprit out of jail. No wonder Hunter Biden was willing to cop a plea.
Hunter Biden could have been sentenced to 12 months for each of his tax charges, which stem from not paying a combined $1.2 million owed for the years 2017 and 2018, although most offenders don’t get that maximum.
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The gun charge is more complicated. Hunter Biden is charged with both possessing a firearm while addicted to drugs and falsely claiming on his federal firearms background check that he was not addicted. These offenses carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison. But Hunter Biden will not be prosecuted for either of them and has instead been allowed to enter a two-year “diversion” program instead. If he completes the program, the gun charges would be stricken from his record entirely.
About half of all referrals for falsely filling out a federal firearm background check are prosecuted, according to federal data. It stinks of prosecutorial favoritism that the Justice Department declined to prosecute Hunter Biden on the gun charges even as Joe Biden pushes for background checks on all firearms transactions, including those between family members. If Joe Biden’s DOJ refuses to prosecute people who lie on federal firearms background checks, what is the background check requirement for? Oh yes, it’s not to prosecute wrongdoers but to keep tabs on all gun owners.
The Biden Justice Department’s refusal to prosecute Hunter Biden will only make it harder for a jury to convict former President Donald Trump, who has all but admitted the comparable technical violation of withholding federal documents improperly in his possession in violation of a court order.
Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal is a boon to his father’s reelection campaign, as one suspects it was intended to be. The DOJ investigation has produced nothing touching Hunter Biden’s dubious business deals with overseas rogues. The slight tap on the wrist for Hunter Biden will be used as a bulletproof defense against all further inquiries and controversy over Biden family influence peddling and handsome slices of the action for “the Big Guy.”
Whenever a reporter asks about Hunter Biden’s legal troubles, including foreign corruption and failure to pay child support, the Biden campaign will point to the plea deal and claim all those problems have been settled. “It’s all old news, and it’s time to move on,” or words to that effect, will be the Democrats’ refrain.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer Chris Clark is already saying it. “With the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved,” Clark said in a post-deal statement.
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But Hunter Biden’s overseas business shenanigans have not been made even remotely clear enough, and investigations into them have not been resolved. House Republicans continue to pursue these matters. But these are, necessarily, political investigations, and they will be dismissed as “just politics” by Joe Biden’s praetorian news media. Without a change in leadership at the White House, Hunter will not be charged for anything the GOP finds, no matter how incriminating.
Joe Biden is in as high a reelection gear as he can achieve, and his son’s plea deal is just the latest sign.
