12/14/23
12/14/2023“The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son.” – Ezekiel 18:19
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The U.S. Justice Department has developed a pretty strong case against Hunter Biden, 53-year-old son of President Joe Biden. On Thursday last week in a Southern California federal court, Special Counsel David Weiss filed a nine-count 56-page indictment, handed down by a grand jury, against Hunter Biden on alleged tax crimes for tax years 2016 to 2019.
The counts include three felonies and six misdemeanors. They claim that Hunter avoided paying at least $1.4 million in federal income taxes, some of those savings allegedly siphoned away from his companies. The indictment includes a chart of the married man’s spending over the period in question that included $683,212 in payments to “various women” and $188,960 on “adult entertainment.”
A quote from the indictment sums it up: “Between 2016 and October 15, 2020, the Defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.”
But wait, there’s more. Last Thursday’s indictment is in addition to three gun-related charges Weiss filed against Hunter Biden in Delaware in September. Hunter is accused of making false statements on a federal firearms form in order to obtain a Colt Cobra revolver, which he possessed for 11 days in 2018 when he was addicted to drugs. He’s charged both with false statements and gun possession.
If Hunter were convicted on all the charges in the pending pair of trials, the maximum penalty would be 17 years in prison on the tax indictment and 25 years on the gun indictment. While it’s highly unlikely those maximums would be imposed, their severity indicates the seriousness of the alleged wrongdoings.
Hunter Biden admits to drug addiction during much of the period in question. Back in June, he agreed to a plea deal under which he admitted guilt on two tax misdemeanors (for which his lawyers noted he had already paid back taxes) and agreed to a “diversion program” on the drug charges, which required that he accept certain conditions and submit to monitoring by a federal court-appointed officer.
The deal fell apart in the federal courtroom in Delaware in July. The judge refused to accept the agreement because lawyers for the justice department and for Hunter disagreed on whether the deal prevented additional charges from being filed in the tax case. Absent a deal, Special Counsel Weiss proceeded to file the tax indictment in federal court in California last week.
The entire Hunter Biden situation would be just one more seamy story if Hunter were just another accused person. But of course he’s not: he’s the son of the President. And that’s why the story fits into national politics.
For months a number of Republicans in the U.S. House have been investigating what they allege are financial illegalities involving President Biden who, they say, has illegally abused his power, first as Vice President under Barack Obama and since 2021 as President himself. Some of them claim he tapped Hunter Biden’s overseas business connections in Ukraine and China in collusion to enrich himself.
Special Counsel Weiss, whom Trump appointed, has been investigating Hunter Biden for five years. He doesn’t mention President Biden in the indictments against Hunter. And a 2020 U.S. Senate investigation led by Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, while noting that Hunter Biden had used his family name in his foreign business dealings, found no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden in that regard.
But the House Oversight Committee, led by Republican Chair James Comer of Kentucky, continues to seek documents and testimony from the Biden Administration to validate GOP suspicions about the President.
So last week, fledgling Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (no relation to Ron) announced that the entire House would vote this week on formally authorizing an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Johnson said the White House rebuffs of the oversight committee’s requests for information left Republicans “no choice” but to proceed with the impeachment inquiry. (That vote may have already been held by the time you’re reading this column.)
The U.S. Constitution provides for impeachment of federal officials for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The bribery provision is closest to the violation for which House Republicans are investigating the President.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Hunter Biden for his testimony in early November. In late November Hunter said he would comply, if the hearing were held in public. The committee insisted on a private hearing, and the resulting standoff with that subpoena continues.
The connection between former President Donald Trump’s two impeachments and the current House Republican focus on President Joe Biden is inescapable. Trump said so himself: Politico reported on September 14 that Trump said revenge was a likely motivator for the Biden impeachment inquiry. He said that if he himself hadn’t been impeached, “perhaps you wouldn’t have it being done to them.”
At any rate, the years-long House GOP attempt to get at President Biden through son Hunter doesn’t show much promise, at least not at this point.
Even Speaker Johnson soft-pedals the impeachment inquiry. On Tuesday last week he tried to assure the nation that the House is not voting to impeach Biden, just to continue its investigation.
“All the moderates in our conference understand this is not a political decision,” he said.
Uh-huh.
Johnson continued, “This is a legal decision. This is a constitutional decision. And whether someone is for or against impeachment is of no import right now. We have to continue our legal responsibility and that is solely what this vote is about.”
The relevant question is how long the House Republican leadership will forge ahead with the Joe Biden investigation if it continues to come up empty, thereby accumulating further embarrassment. How long do you send out the dog if he won’t hunt?
