After waiting for five years to see what was going to happen in the investigation into Hunter Biden and the Biden family influence-peddling allegations, the Department of Justice finally decided to enter into a plea agreement on counts only concerning individual counts about Hunter — two about his taxes and one gun charge.
Hunter Biden has been charged with two misdemeanor tax offenses and a felony firearm offense and has agreed to enter a plea of guilty to the tax offenses and enter into a pre-trial diversion agreement with regard to the firearm charge at a proceeding to be scheduled by the assigned United States District Court judge.
According to the tax Information, Hunter Biden received taxable income in excess of $1,500,000 annually in calendar years 2017 and 2018. Despite owing in excess of $100,000 in federal income taxes each year, he did not pay the income tax due for either year.
According to the firearm Information, from on or about October 12, 2018 through October 23, 2018, Hunter Biden possessed a firearm despite knowing he was an unlawful user of and addicted to a controlled substance.
What’s interesting in there as well is that it says at the bottom: “The investigation is ongoing.”
There are a couple of schools of thought on that. One is they are continuing to look into things. I wouldn’t feel particularly confident about that being the case, given everything we’ve seen so far. The other school of thought, which makes more sense to me, is that they’re going to say the “investigation is ongoing” so they don’t have to comment on evidence and/or so they don’t have to turn things over to Congress.
After hearing from Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Christopher Clark, during an interview after the plea was announced, I would think that Congress would have a ton of questions for the U.S. Attorney in Delaware.
Clark said that he expected that Hunter Biden was going to be “released without any conditions.” He did concede, however, that the ultimate disposition is going to be up to the judge.
Before it is final, the judge has to accept the plea agreement, which the judge probably will barring anything untoward.
The interviewer asked, “The prosecutors are not asking for jail time. Are you concerned that the judge here might freelance?”
Clark said, “I think what’s fair is my client gets on with his life.”
But it’s these next two parts that I find infuriating.
Clark says that he “can’t recall being asked about” Hunter’s laptop by federal investigators. “You’d have to ask the prosecutors,” he said.
Seriously? So if that’s true — and that’s a big if — what does that indicate? Did the FBI ever even look into the laptop at all? Some of the info on the laptop pertained to the charges, for example, the gun count. But it’s hard to believe they never asked him, and if they didn’t, Congress should be demanding to know what was going on here in terms of the laptop and whether the things on it were ever pursued.
The interviewer asks if he has seen any proof of the influence peddling that Republicans say is on the laptop. The lawyer first says he hasn’t seen any such proof. He says he’s seen people wave “various random emails around.”
He reiterates the claim that the laptop info was “stolen” without presenting any evidence of that, despite what computer repairman John Paul Mac Isaac has said to the contrary. He claims there was no “proof” of any violation, yet he seems to also be saying he hasn’t seen the laptop. He gets no pushback from the MSNBC interviewer, of course. Not only doesn’t she push back on his claim about the laptop info being “stolen,” she suggests, “I might sue” if she were in that situation. Unbelievable. Journalism is truly dead.
So Comer and the Republicans need to go to town on the FBI and ask what happened to the laptop here, and is anyone in the FBI even looking into it at all?