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HUNTER BIDEN’S CASES, EXPLAINED
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
We are in a new age of investigation and scrutiny. Today, the president’s son, Hunter Biden, led the headlines after agreeing to a plea deal for tax and firearm offenses.
This is one of multiple investigations that have swirled around the 53-year-old. It has not always been easy to track. As we like to do, this seemed a good opportunity to lay out what we know. First, a brief rundown of the main investigations:
Next, let’s dive a little deeper on each.
The yearslong federal investigation
What happened today: Hunter Biden has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of failing to file taxes for two years in a plea deal that also involves a felony gun charge. That one count is for buying a firearm during a period when he was, per the Justice Department, “an unlawful user of and addicted to a controlled substance.”
Maximum prison time: The law allows up to 10 years in prison for the gun charge and one year each for the tax offenses. (But keep reading.)
Actual prison time: Could be none. As part of the plea deal, the U.S. attorney has agreed not to prosecute the most serious charge — possessing a handgun, a Colt Cobra .38 Special, as a drug user. In exchange, according to The New York Times, Hunter has agreed to remain drug-free for 24 months and never purchase a firearm again. For the tax charges, prosecutors will recommend probation. That means there may be no prison time involved. But a judge must approve that deal and could decide that Biden must serve time in prison, regardless.
Background: Hunter revealed in late 2020 that he had been under federal investigation since 2018. At the time, multiple outlets reported that the probe was broad, including Hunter’s business activities, tax filings and possible money laundering and foreign lobbying offenses.
As is standard procedure, little has been announced publicly about the investigation.
We know it has been led by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Wilmington, Delaware. Weiss was nominated to that job in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump.
The probe reportedly began as a look into Hunter’s tax filings, but expanded to look into his sources of income and related conduct. The New York Times reported that investigators were questioning Hunter’s ties and possible actions on behalf of interests in Kazakhstan, China and Ukraine during the years his father was vice president of the United States.
Status and conclusions: Plea deals sometimes signal the end of an investigation. However, Weiss’ office wrote clearly in its release on the case Tuesday, “The investigation is ongoing.” Republicans in Congress have criticized the plea deal, as they continue their own investigations, which include whether the federal investigation was itself legitimately handled. (See below.)
The ongoing House Republican investigation
Background: The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is amid a probe into the Biden family. Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., explained its nexus as the idea that the Bidens have a “pattern of peddling access to the highest levels of government to enrich themselves, often to the detriment of U.S. interests.”
In May, Comer released a memo detailing a series of international payments that the Republican chairman said were routed to Biden family members via a third-party associate. That includes over $1 million that Comer asserted was laundered from a Chinese company in 2017.
House Republicans’ most recent focus has been on investigating if Hunter and/or Joe Biden were part of a bribery scheme. Hunter has denied such accusations of bribery in the past, telling The New Yorker, “What would they be bribing me for? My dad wasn’t in office.” He told the outlet he gave away a diamond gifted to him by a Chinese energy baron.
This has become confusing, in part due to public statements by Comer, but let’s try to clear it up here.
The committee, working with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has looked into allegations, including from an unnamed and undescribed whistleblower, that the FBI has ignored important protocols in the Hunter investigation. The committee forced the FBI to share a document detailing a tip alleging that Hunter took $5 million in bribes to secure a policy change from his father when Joe Biden was vice president.
While NBC has reported, citing a senior law enforcement official, that the allegation was not substantiated, Comer and Republicans continue to see it as serious.
Status: This is ongoing. Following news of Hunter’s guilty plea, House Republicans vowed, “We will not rest” as they continue to look at the Biden family.
The 2020 Senate Republican investigation
Background: The Republican majority on the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees produced an 87-page report in 2020 looking into allegations of corruption by the Biden family, centering around Hunter’s 2014 seat on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma and connected relationships with Chinese entities.
Conclusions: The Republican report raised serious questions (see below), but did not find evidence of corruption by Hunter or any other Biden.
It concluded that Hunter was involved in a “vast financial network” connected to foreign nationals and that his work on the Burisma board “cast a shadow” over anti-corruption efforts. It raised questions about Biden family wealth, the role of Joe Biden and timing of Obama-Biden policy decisions, but Democrats — in their own report — stressed they found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Something else to watch: the child support lawsuit
Hunter has petitioned a court to lower the child support he pays for a 4-year-old daughter who lives in Arkansas. The case is notable because of the potential financial information it could disclose.
The judge has indicated she is not happy with Hunter’s redaction of past financial information. The next hearing in this case is set for July 10.
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