Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) won’t be dropping his hold on Justice Department nominees anytime soon after prosecutors reached a plea deal with President Joe Biden’s son.
Hunter Biden may avoid jail time after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges. U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss has recommended he receive probation.
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Hunter Biden is faced with a felony gun charge as well, though the punishment could be waived if he complies with what’s known as a pretrial diversion program.
Republicans have denounced the agreement, revealed in a federal court filing Tuesday morning, as a “sweetheart deal” that Hunter Biden only got because his father is president.
Democrats counter that the prosecution of a sitting president’s son shows the agency’s “continued institutional independence” and note that Weiss, the lead prosecutor for the case, was appointed by then-President Donald Trump.
Yet Republicans say the plea deal is the latest example of the DOJ targeting conservatives while offering leniency to the Biden family. The news comes days after the agency charged Trump over his handling of classified documents.
Vance, who is protesting the Trump charges with a blockade on all DOJ nominees except U.S. marshals, joined his GOP colleagues on Tuesday in railing against the Biden administration.
“Any other American would have the book thrown at them,” Vance said of the Hunter Biden plea deal. “The president’s son gets a slap on the wrist.”
The senator reiterated his intention to delay the confirmation of DOJ nominees, in effect a symbolic gesture since those nominees typically require a procedural vote in the Senate anyway.
“This is exhibit 1,402 for why I’m holding Biden’s DOJ nominees,” he tweeted. “We have a two-tiered justice system in our country. It’s a disgrace.”
Hunter Biden has been in hot water for years over his failure to pay more than $200,000 in taxes. He has since repaid what he owed and agreed to plead guilty to charges that carry up to a year in prison.
The president’s son, who has struggled with drug abuse, is also charged with felony possession of a firearm despite being an “unlawful user of and addicted to a controlled substance.”
The charges cap off a five-year investigation that extends back to the Trump administration. Yet Republicans dismissed the news as a “deflection” from alleged crimes that could ensnare the president himself.
Republicans have long accused the Biden family of corruption, noting the money Hunter Biden was paid on the board of a Ukrainian energy company during his father’s time as vice president.
The party now says it has evidence of a bribery scheme implicating Joe Biden, citing a June 2020 interview the FBI conducted with a whistleblower.
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Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) vowed on Tuesday to continue the House’s investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, but many Republicans, including Vance, have called for the appointment of a special counsel.
“If half the things that we’re hearing in this building are true about the Biden administration, we at the very least need to get to the bottom of it,” he told the Washington Examiner last week. “So, I think an investigation is totally warranted, and a special counsel should do it.”
