WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s son Hunter will plead guilty to federal tax offenses but avoid prosecution on a separate gun charge in a deal with the Justice Department that likely spares him time behind bars.
Hunter Biden, 53, will plead guilty to the misdemeanor tax offenses as part of an agreement made public Tuesday. The agreement will also avoid prosecution on a felony charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user, as long as he adheres to conditions set by prosecutors. It’s somewhat unusual to resolve a federal criminal case at the same time charges are filed in court but not unheard of.
The deal ends a long-running Justice Department investigation into Biden’s second son, who has acknowledged struggling with addiction following the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden. It also averts a trial that would have generated days or weeks of distracting headlines for a White House that has strenuously sought to keep its distance from the Justice Department.
While it requires the younger Biden to admit guilt, the deal is narrowly focused on tax and weapons violations rather than anything broader or tied to the Democratic president. Nonetheless, former President Donald Trump and other Republicans continued to try to use the case to shine an unflattering spotlight on Joe Biden and to raise questions about the independence of the Biden Justice Department.
Trump, challenging President Biden in the 2024 presidential race, likened the agreement to a “mere traffic ticket,” adding, “Our system is BROKEN!”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy compared the outcome to the Trump documents case now heading toward federal and said, “If you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another presidential challenger, used the same term.
The White House counsel’s office said simply in a statement that the president and first lady Jill Biden “love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life.”
Two people familiar with the investigation said the Justice Department would recommend probation for the tax charges, meaning Hunter Biden will not face time in prison. But the decision to go along with any deal is up to the judge. The people were not authorized to speak publicly by name and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
He is to plead guilty to failing to pay more than $100,0000 in taxes on over $1.5 million in income in both 2017 and 2018, charges that carry a maximum possible penalty of a year in prison. The back taxes have since been paid, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The gun charge states that Hunter Biden possessed a handgun, a Colt Cobra .38 Special, for 11 days in October 2018 despite knowing he was a drug user. The count carries a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison, but the Justice Department said Hunter Biden had reached a pretrial agreement. This likely means as long as he adheres to the terms of the agreement, the case will be wiped from his record.
Christopher Clark, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, said in a statement that it was his understanding that the five-year investigation had now been resolved.
“I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life,” Clark said. “He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”
The agreement comes as the Justice Department pursues perhaps the most consequential case in its history against Trump, the first former president to face federal criminal charges. The resolution of Hunter Biden’s case comes just days after a 37-count indictment against former President Trump in relation to accusations of mishandling classified documents on his Florida estate, a case with even more significant political implications.
That indictment has brought an onslaught of Republican criticism of “politicization” of the Justice Department. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans continue to pursue their own investigations into nearly every facet of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, including foreign payments.
Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said the younger Biden is “getting away with a slap on the wrist,” despite investigations in Congress that GOP lawmakers say show — but have not yet provided evidence of — a pattern of corruption involving the family’s financial ties.
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, on the other hand, said the case was thoroughly investigated over five years by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Delaware prosecutor judge appointed by Trump.
Resolution of the case, Coons said, “brings to a close a five-year investigation, despite the elaborate conspiracy theories spun by many who believed there would be much more to this.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was scheduled to campaign with the president Tuesday evening, reaffirmed his support for Biden’s reelection.
“Hunter changes nothing,” Newsom told The AP on Tuesday
The Trump charges came from a special counsel, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to conduct an independent investigation to avoid any potential conflict of interest in the Justice Department.
The Justice Department investigation into the president’s son burst into public view in December 2020, one month after the 2020 election, when Hunter Biden revealed that he had received a subpoena as part of the department’s scrutiny of his taxes. The subpoena sought information on the younger Biden’s business dealings with a number of entities, including Burisma, a Ukraine gas company on whose board he sat.
Hunter Biden said in a statement at the time that he was “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers.”
Since then, a federal grand jury in Delaware has heard testimony related to his taxes and foreign business transactions.
In February 2021, the department sought the resignation of most Trump-era U.S. attorneys, as is customary in a new presidential administration, but made a point of noting that it was leaving Weiss in place as a way to ensure continuity in the probe.
At a congressional hearing last August, FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed that the investigation remained active out of the bureau’s Baltimore field office and said it was a matter that “I expect our folks to pursue aggressively.”
Garland pledged not to interfere in the probe at another hearing in March. An unnamed IRS special agent, though, later alleged mishandling of the investigation in a letter to Congress in which he sought whistleblower protection.
The younger Biden joined the board of Burisma in 2014, around the time his father, then Barack Obama’s vice president, was helping conduct the Obama administration’s foreign policy with Ukraine. Trump and his allies have long argued, without evidence, that Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine influenced the Obama administration’s policies toward the East European nation.
Years before the case was brought, Hunter Biden surfaced as a central character in the first impeachment case against Trump, who in an apparent bid to boost his own reelection bid had asked Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a telephone call to announce an investigation into the younger Biden.
Republicans later sought to make Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine a prominent issue during the 2020 presidential election.
In October of that year, the New York Post reported that it had received from Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani a copy of a hard drive of a laptop that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved.
The story was greeted with skepticism due to questions about the laptop’s origins, including Giuliani’s involvement, and because top officials in the Trump administration had already warned that Russia was working to denigrate Joe Biden ahead of the November election. No evidence has emerged of any Russian connection to the laptop or to he will emails found on the advice.
Rules for thee, but not for me!
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“No evidence has emerged of any Russian connection to the laptop or to he will emails found on the advice.”
“or to he will emails found on the advice.” ?
you in a hurry John?
He’s pretty busy. Just heard him on “Bishop on Air” a Peoria(?) radio guy who is extremely pro-2A. Subscribe on the Tube🙄
never heard of it. I’ll look it up.
That’s the AP’s language, although Boch may have done some editing for posting here.
I would really like to see how the judge can agree to whatever the deal was made regarding the gun possession charge as it would apply to a common person. It galls me everytime some person who is connected to or is part of the rich and/or famous gets charges dropped or mitigated when a common person would get a felony charge and spend time in jail. Justice for ALL!!
Reminds one of Alec Baldwin.
Since he gets only a misdemeanor I wonder if he gets to keep his gun rights? He will want to be able to inherit his parent’s double barrel home defense shotgun. Funny, the ATF was just highlighting how drug users can’t have guns, I wonder how many people have had the book thrown at them with that law.
Just ask Nikki Fried of Florida, she publicly admits to using marijuana, her boyfriend has a mary jane business and she admits publicly to owning firearms. Somehow the Feds aint interested even after she calls fire on her own position. And ya’ll worried about bump stocks 14.5″ vs 16″ uppers, pistol braces and FRTs? BTW how many of you would turn the other in for such information on previously mentioned items? Probably the majority of “Americans”. keep complaining and voting harder.
Once the Republicans have the White House back there will be a real investigation of the whole Biden crime family business. Hunter and Jim Biden will go to jail, but Joe won’t be fit to stand trial because of his declining mental state.
Rusty Chains,
“Once the Republicans have the White House back there will be a real investigation …”
I would not count on that. First of all, God only knows what sort of sleazy backroom deals could be in the works. More importantly, the United States Justice Department is filled with Pr0gressive True Believers who WILL delay, obfuscate, and derail any investigation.
Remember, the head of the United States Justice Department (a.k.a. the U.S. Attorney General) does not personally investigate or build cases–he/she leaves that task to underlings. And any case is only as good as the underlings are inclined to build.
I guess we could boil it all down to a simple question: is their first loyalty to their political party or their government brother/sisterhood? Pro-tip: never, ever underestimate government’s loyalty to government.
“Once the Republicans have the White House back there will be a real investigation …”
The Republicans have held the House, Senate, and the White house several times. They didn’t do Jack S@#t.
We have the best politicians that money can buy!
The self serving junkie son of Jim Crow Gun Control democRat joe gets a pass while others with much lesser offenses were sent to jail.
After all, Dementia Joe did say that Hunter was the smartest guy he knows.
This country is no different than your ordinary, run of the mill Banana Republic. The elites at the top of the heap do what they do with total impunity, and they do it openly and with complete disregard for what the rest of us think.
The so-called “Justice” system is a corrupt sham.
Ticked Off,
I used to think that the Ruling Class was focused almost exclusively on increasing their wealth and gallivanting around in luxury. Of course they would sometimes use their status to get away with stuff (usually low-level) which would land the Working Class in jail.
As of the last 12 months or so I am now convinced that a major percentage of the Ruling Class is focused on humiliating the Working Class. Sadly, that makes perfect sense. When you have a mountain of cash and exhausted all the usual stuff for fun/pleasure/excitement, what is left for “thrills”? Answer: manipulate people and see just how low you can make them go.
None Dare Call It Conspiracy
A system that allegedly takes “gun violence” seriously, so seriously they want to remove the 2nd and go door to door to collect them all, has a pretty regular habit of pleaing those offenses away whether it’s the son of the POTUS (smartest guy he knows) or any of the thousands in Chicago.
what ever comes out of any further investigations, if this goes thru, as a guilty verdict, even with the ‘slap on the wrist’, it will stand on record that these crimes were committed. There should be continuous investigations following the money, (as they say in the movies). Or it least it should go that way. As others brought up, look at the baldwin case. I understand that the Courts have their system of doing things, as well as the way lawyers can twist the English language, but he admitted it.
An admission to a misdemeanor “accounting error” income tax violation and pre-trial diversion for 18 USC 922/924 firearms charges which completely disappear in three years or less really lock those admissions into stone.
But, but, but, but…..Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Q-tard/hopium, conservative “what are you conserving but the status quo crowd”, while Republicrats make press statements about holding hearings. Ahaaaaaa😂
Keep wishing and hoping and praying.
This post would have been more meaningful and inspirational if i put in a quote of some sort from our founders right?
Doesn’t matter, Bribem Sr would just pardon him anyway… My only problem with this thing is that Bribem Jr. claims his brother’s death is the reason for his drug addiction, but he was kicked out of the Navy Reserve in 2014 (a YEAR before his brother died) after testing positive for Cocaine… Once a scumbag liar ALWAYS a scumbag liar…
This was a palm greasing all around. Brandon can’t have a felon for a son, but even the left will get angry if the Blessed Biden Boy gets off the hook, so they had to come to a middle ground and slap his wrist. And do it soon enough that it’ll be out of the media by the time the normally oblivious JQ Public starts to think about voting a President. As long as it’s old news, it’ll stay old news.
“…White House that has strenuously sought to keep its distance from the Justice Department.”
“…White House that has strenuously pretended to keep its distance from the Justice Department.”
FIFY
AT LEAST TOOK RESPONSIBILITY …..
NOT LIKE THAT LOW CLASS TRASH tRUMP , SPEAKING OF TRASH DUMP tRUMP .
LOCKUP AN THROW AWAY THA KEY . TALKS SH.T ANYWAY .
SPEAKING OF SH.T , TURDS JUST POUR OUT OF HIS LYING GOOD FOR NOTHING MOUTH .
Bravo! Just an awe inspiring display of literary eloquence on the part of NTEXAS. You Sir , should be a finalist for, at the least, the Nobel prize for Literature. Again bravo for your unrecognized talent.
hegot caut so responutility!
Choco chip ice cream gurls?
LETS GO BRANDON, & FAMILY , 🖕🏿
Think the FBI and DOJ is not corrupt? It took 5 years to come to this? The local Sheriff would have had the investigation completed in a month. Federal L.E. is what we used to see in third world dictatorships.
Everything is politics and politics is everything.
A credo the Dems live and breath by.
trump installed weiss, but biden did also during this term.
“Second of all, when Trump appointed this guy, he did so in the usual way, just approving the guy picked for Delaware by Delaware’s two leftwing Democrat Senators. So yes, Trump appointed him — but he did not pick him. Democrats picked him.” -aceofspades
perfect timing, they can now say, “see, the doj is fair and balanced- we’re not railroading that other guy.”
and the magpie media will all spew the same crap.
It’s good to see equal justice under the law.
A foundational building block.
4 more years
Few if any of the professional politicians, or should I say Dementiacrats, or their families or favorites, will ever be held accountable for anything. And, yes, Trump will eventually be convicted of something. The Uniparty and the bureaucracy is desperate to keep him out of office and will do anything to be rid of him. Can’t upset the apple cart or derail the gravy train.
A minority charged with this gun crime could point to Hunter evidently benefitting from white privilege and institutional racism due to being born the son of a political elite white democrat. The minority could further argue that the equal protection clause of the constitution requires a minority to have equal treatment to the political elite like Hunter. Al’s the minority could argue that the gun law is unconstitutional due to not being enforced on white democrats like it is on minorities.
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