WHO IS HUNTER BIDEN?
Hunter Biden is the 53 year old son of Joe Biden. When he was 2 years old he and his older brother, Beau, survived a car crash on December 18, 1972, that killed his mother and younger sister. Both boys were hospitalized and suffered trauma. Hunter Biden suffered a fractured skull and severe traumatic brain injury. Both boys spent several months in the hospital. Hunter got relief from the pain using opioids like so many Americans have done. And like many Americans, he returned to drugs for relief especially in times of stress.
Hunter went to a Catholic high school and graduated with a degree in history from Georgetown University in 1992. He was a Jesuit volunteer at a Portland Oregon church where he met his first wife. He graduated from Yale law school in 1996. After college Hunter had a series of jobs in the financial industry. He worked as an investor and lobbyist and in private equity. Hunter Biden had jobs connecting him to Ukraine (Burisma) and China (BHR Partners). He struggled with drug addiction his whole life. After his older brother, Beau, died in May of 2015, he turned to drugs again. If you want to read more details about Hunter Biden’s life, click on the link to the Wikipedia article below.
Starting in September of 2019, Trump began to accuse Hunter Biden of corruption or malfeasance of some kind in his dealings in Ukraine and/or China. Trump’s efforts to connect Joe Biden to Hunter and insinuate there was corruption by Joe Biden have never been substantiated. Never. That has not stopped Trump from trying to dirty up Joe Biden. He did that before the election in 2020 by saying that he was somehow in league with his son doing something bad in Ukraine. Trump tried to make Biden’s alleged corruption a central theme in his re-election campaign. The problem for Trump was that those allegations were baseless and they came back to bite him when Zelenskyy refused to play along with him. Trump’s false allegations about Biden led to Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives. The MAGA wing of the Republican Party has taken up this attack on Joe Biden via his relationship with his wayward son. They are likely being pressured by Trump to keep pursuing Hunter as a way to dirty up Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden is no angel. He has been addicted to drugs, it’s true. He says he got into opiates to deal with pain from having been in that car accident early in his life and losing his mother and sister and sustaining serious injuries. He broke the law by failing to file his taxes and by lying about being on drugs when he submitted paperwork to purchase a gun. He probably also dropped his dad’s name and used his connection to his father to get jobs or deals but that doesn’t mean Joe Biden was party to what Hunter did or said. Trump tried to make something nefarious out of Joe Biden calling his son almost daily when he worked at Burisma in Ukraine. But Hunter’s partner, Devon Archer, testified under oath in the grand jury that he was in the room for those calls and Joe Biden called Hunter to try to support him and to help him stay strong and resist drug use. The conversations were about subjects like the weather and not some dirty deal to make money, according to Devon Archer. Trump is the kind of guy who would not understand trying to be supportive of a son in recovery. He is a narcissist and they only care about themselves.
THE BROKEN PLEA DEAL SMELLS FISHY
David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney in Delaware who was appointed by Donald Trump, has been investigating Hunter Biden for 5 years. It looked like his investigation had run its course and there was an agreement with Hunter’s defense counsel for Hunter to enter into a plea deal. Hunter was ready to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts for failure to file his taxes and enter a pretrial diversion program related to the gun charge. The deal they agreed to was 2 years of probation for the tax charges with the gun charge being dropped at the end of the period of probation if Hunter met the conditions of the diversion program.
But in court that day before a Trump appointed judge on July 26, 2023, the judge questioned Hunter’s attorneys asking whether the agreement meant that the charges against Hunter would be fully “resolved”. The defense said yes and the prosecution said no. They were at odds. The judge, rightly, could not take a plea like that. She sent both sides back to resolve the disagreement. Weiss let it be known that there just might be a possible FARA charge still being investigated, which was news to Hunter Biden’s defense attorneys. The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires that anyone who acts on the behalf of a foreign government (like China or Ukraine) must register with the DOJ and file regular reports. Why did the Trump appointed US Attorney, David Weiss, suddenly throw a monkey wrench into a plea agreement that had seemed to be resolved? Something seems fishy here.
It is hard for me to believe that the Biden defense attorneys were not made aware of a continuing investigation by Weiss before entering into a plea deal. If Weiss was not finished with his investigation into Hunter Biden why did he at first agree to a deal with finality- that all issues with Hunter were fully resolved? Why did Weiss change his position on the plea deal? There is something strange here. Hunter’s defense attorneys are not novices. They would have insisted that this plea agreement absolve Hunter of all further charges especially since that was the goal of entering into such a deal in the first place. I can’t believe they would have entered into a plea agreement without that promise of finality.
WERE TRUMP AND THE MAGA REPUBLICANS BEHIND THIS BREAKDOWN?
Trump has vowed that if he gets elected again, he plans to go after Hunter Biden and Joe Biden with what he calls HIS DOJ. Trump has openly threatened to staff up the DOJ with nothing but his loyalists-people who will do his bidding. He will seek revenge. You can understand why Hunter was trying to get a plea deal that would prevent Trump from going after him if Trump regained the presidency. And you could also understand why Trump would want to stop such a deal from happening. This is also a tactic being used by the MAGA Republicans to harass Joe Biden and try to damage his image as he seeks re-election. If David Weiss had signed off on a plea deal that fully resolved all the pending matters that would prevent Trump and the MAGAs from going after Hunter in the future and would have taken away one of their last attacks on the so called Biden “crime family”. With the economy going better (Bidenomics), the border less of a problem, and crime dropping, they would have nothing left but Biden’s age to talk about in the face of 3 criminal indictments of their inevitable nominee, Donald Trump. (Oh, and another criminal indictment is coming this week out of Georgia).
With Hunter’s plea deal in a shambles, it looks like there will be a trial now to get finality in this case. Since the acts that were criminal apparently occurred in California and DC, for David Weiss to indict Hunter Biden, he would need to do so in California or DC., not Delaware. That is a “venue” issue. It’s the reason Trump was indicted in Florida for his acts at Mar-a-Lago and in DC for his acts when he was in the Oval Office, for example. David Weiss asked Merrick Garland to appoint him as Special Counsel, similar to Jack Smith’s role with Trump. Garland granted that request. In fairness to Garland, appointing Weiss as Special Counsel gives Weiss the ability to indict in any state not just Delaware. Fair enough. But the fact that the plea agreement fell apart ostensibly because Weiss was continuing his 5 year investigation into some nebulous wrongdoing or violation he should have uncovered by now if it existed especially when Weiss seemed to be ready to end the investigation, that is what smells so rotten. It stinks, in fact.
WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON HERE?
I feel pretty certain that Trump and the MAGAs in the House must have been engaged in a heavy duty pressure campaign on David Weiss behind the scenes to at least SAY he is still looking for more dirt on Hunter Biden and not close the investigation out. Even if they can just say there is an investigation and Hunter might be guilty of doing something dirty with Joe helps the MAGAs and Trump to assert moral equivalency. “You think I am a criminal? Look at Hunter Biden! and the Biden Crime family! Don’t look at ME and MY crime family!”
After 5 years of investigating Hunter Biden and coming up with nothing more than these tax issues and lying about drug use when he purchased a gun, it is highly unlikely that there is anything more out there to learn about Hunter. And by-the-way, many thousands of people purchasing a gun lie about their drug use even though they’re not supposed to. They typically don’t get charged unless the gun was used in a crime. What the GOP is calling a sweetheart deal for Hunter Biden arguably wasn’t a sweetheart deal. If Hunter had been a regular guy it is unlikely that his lie at the time of his gun purchase would have been charged at all.
NO MORAL EQUIVALENCY
The Republicans will now be able to keep claiming the Bidens MIGHT be dirty. They will talk about Hunter when Trump’s trials are front and center in the coming months. But let’s be clear. There is NO equivalency between Hunter Biden’s petty crimes and those of Donald Trump. Trump tried to steal an election to stay in power. He tried to upend our democracy. He took top secret documents and stashed them in the bathroom and ballroom of his club. Plus—Hunter Biden was not president. He was just a mope. Trump had massive power and still does. And Hunter is not Joe Biden. Even if Hunter was doing drugs and lying when he bought a gun that was Hunter not Joe doing that. Even if Hunter didn’t pay his taxes, that was Hunter, not Joe doing that. Hunter did not work for the government. He is a private citizen. How about the misdeeds of Jared and Ivanka using their connection to Trump and their government positions to get vastly richer?
In short,
Since early 2019, Hunter and his father, Joe Biden, have been the subjects of false allegations of corrupt activities in a Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory. The accusations concern Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and Joe Biden’s anti-corruption efforts there.[4]
Just like Hillary’s emails, Trump and the MAGA Republicans know that by repeating a lie people will eventually believe it. Hitler and other dictators understand that idea. They repeat the lie again and again to create doubt and put a cloud over their political rivals. To keep insisting that Joe is dirty when there is no evidence of it is reminiscent of Trump’s campaign claiming Barack Obama was a Muslim who wasn’t born in the United States. A continuing investigation gives the Republicans a “whataboutism” talking point whenever Trump’s trials come up. In addition, Joe Biden has vowed not to comment on his son’s problems or intervene in any way with the Department of Justice. The MAGAs and Trump get to keep speculating about Hunter and Joe being criminal knowing Joe Biden will stay silent.
When it comes to a witch hunt, continuing to search for something to pin on Joe Biden through his son after five years of investigating IS a darn good example of a witch hunt. But Republicans should be careful what they wish for. The dark motives ascribed to Joe Biden are at odds with the man’s personality but they fit perfectly with Donald Trump’s personality. If Hunter and Joe are not found guilty of something after all of this investigating at taxpayer expense, it will be more evidence that the Republican Party is too extreme and out of touch with Americans. This ploy could backfire on the Republicans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden