Hunter Biden faces investigation on two federal counts of tax evasion and illegal possession of a weapon, in a case that also targets the Justice Department with accusations of promoting a flawed investigation, involving political interference, and going “slowly” on the investigation. investigation to exhaust the terms of some possible charges, as testified by two agents of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Gary Shapleu and Joseph Ziegler, before the Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives.
The president’s son reached a plea deal with the Justice Department to avoid jail time on charges of tax evasion and illegal possession of a firearm, but the deal fell through over opposition from a judge. Pressured by criticism and by the alleged partial application of justice to the benefit of the president’s son, the Secretary of the Department of Justice, Merrick Garland, promoted the person investigating the cases to special prosecutor on August 11.
By way of justifying the barrage of criticism from legislators and the mistrust of many Americans in the Department of Justice, Garland announced Friday that he had appointed a special attorney in the Hunter Biden investigation, “deepening the investigation” of the president’s son before the 2024 elections.
Biden’s attorney argued in court papers that the plea deal that freed him from prosecution for felony gun possession remains in effect, though the misdemeanor tax plea deal fell apart during a court appearance. last month.
The lawyer for the president’s son argued that the Justice Department decided to “renege” on its part of the agreement on the tax charges. The agreement on the gun possession charge also contains an immunity clause from federal prosecution for other possible crimes.
Biden plans to abide by the terms of that agreement, including not using drugs or alcohol, attorney Christopher Clark said in court papers filed Sunday night. Prosecutors, who “largely dictated” the agreement after inviting them to start negotiations in May, should also be bound by it, he argued.
But it’s not clear if prosecutors agree that the deal on the gun possession charge remains valid. District Judge Maryellen Noreika ordered them to respond by Tuesday. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The two-part deal on the prosecution and gun possession charges was supposed to have largely closed out the lengthy investigation overseen by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss. The deal, however, fell through after a judge raised doubts about its terms and appeared to have completely unraveled when prosecutors said in court documents Friday that the case was headed for judgment.
Prosecutors revealed the impasse when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special prosecutor, a status that confers broad powers to investigate and report his findings.
Extortion and influence peddling?
Republicans in Congress have launched multiple investigations into the deals Hunter Biden did with China and Ukraine when his father was Barack Obama’s vice president (2009-2017).
One of the investigations is for alleged influence peddling and using his father’s position to promote his businesses that left him million-dollar profits.
On the subject, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, wrote on his Twitter account that during his testimony Devon Archer confirmed that Joe Biden was “the brand” that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family. “What were the Bidens selling? Nothing but access and influence to the highest levels of government,” he asserted, saying that President Biden needs to be honest. What else is he hiding?” he questioned.
After Biden was appointed in charge of US-Ukraine policy a couple of weeks later, his son Hunter joined Burisma’s board of directors. That fact, possible tax fraud, corruption in obtaining permits for gas production, and the possible sending of money to the United States were the subject of an investigation by Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies.
According to journalistic reports, Hunter Biden would be the target of investigations by the Prosecutor’s Office in Ukraine, and at the time they were preparing the request to question him for sending 3,000,000 dollars to the United States, then Vice President Biden traveled to Kiev and forced the Ukrainian president at that time Petro Poroshenko, to fire the attorney general Viktor Shokin, in charge of the investigation, otherwise he would not disburse a loan of 1,000 million dollars that Ukraine needed at that time to maintain economic solvency.
About the dismissal of the prosecutor, Biden himself spoke in 2016, but giving a different motivation to his decision, according to a video recorded during a Council on Foreign Relations event in 2016.
“I remember convincing our team that we should be providing loan guarantees, and I went… I guess the 12th or 13th time to kyiv, to announce that there were another billions of loans. I received a promise from (Petro) Poroshenko (President of Ukraine) and (Arseni) Yatsenyuk (Prime Minister of Ukraine at the time) that they would take action against the Prosecutor General, but they did not. And I told them we’re not going to give them $1 billion. They replied: “You have no authority, you are not the president, the president has promised.” I answered them: “Call him. I told you that you will not receive 1,000 million dollars.” I told them that I was leaving in 6 hours, and that if they did not fire the prosecutor by that time, they would not receive the money. And well, son of a bitch, they fired him, “said Biden about that fact, in a testimony collected on video.
The president’s account provoked laughter among the attendees.
FOUNTAIN: With information from AP and Writing
