Written by Hudson Crozier
What’s happening: President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, has agreed to plead guilty to two counts of misdemeanor tax offenses related to his foreign business transactions after the Department of Justice filed charges against him. The plea deal will allow him to avoid felony prosecution and jail time for also allegedly buying a firearm as a drug addict—a charge that could’ve amounted to five years in federal prison. He isn’t being charged for lying on his background check, which holds penalties of up to 10 years in prison.
Is that all? Not necessarily. First, the plea deal must receive approval from a judge. The DOJ also said that its criminal investigation of Hunter, which has lasted almost five years, “is ongoing.” The prosecutor leading the investigation, David Weiss, was appointed by former President Donald Trump.
The outrage: Republicans see the prosecution’s latest move as an overly lenient “sweetheart deal” and vow to continue their own investigation. Given that Hunter admitted to evading tax payments, questions arise about whether he and his family reported the millions of dollars in foreign deals that they hid via shell companies. There is also evidence that Hunter transported prostitutes across state lines, which is a federal crime. A whistleblower from the IRS believes that the DOJ, including Weiss’s office, has purposefully delayed the investigation for political purposes and that Attorney General Merrick Garland submitted false testimony to Congress about it.
Big picture: When it comes to the legal matters surrounding Donald Trump and the Bidens, we’re living in unprecedented and confusing times.
- The current president’s administration is prosecuting his political rival, a former president who appointed the judge presiding over the classified documents case.
- President Biden’s own administration is also investigating him, and a prosecutor appointed by former President Trump but serving in the current administration is investigating the president’s son.
This complex overlapping will continue to render such events unpredictable as both of the frontrunners for the 2024 presidential election face issues with the law.