CV NEWS FEED // A California grand jury on Thursday indicted President Joe Biden’s son Hunter on nine tax-related charges. Three are felonies and the remaining six are misdemeanors.
The Associated Press (AP) noted that these new tax charges “are in addition to federal firearms charges in Delaware alleging Hunter Biden broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018.”
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported:
In the 56-page indictment, prosecutors from special counsel David Weiss’s office said the younger Biden chose over a four-year period not to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes he owed for the years 2016—the final full year of Joe Biden’s vice presidency—through 2019. Prosecutors said Hunter Biden also evaded taxes for 2018 by filing false or fraudulent returns.
Hunter Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” Weiss stated in a Thursday Department of Justice (DOJ) press release. In addition, the president’s son “in 2018, stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for tax year 2015.”
Per Weiss’ office, Hunter Biden also
subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company by withdrawing millions outside of the payroll and tax withholding process;
…
willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes;
willfully failed to file his 2017 and 2018 tax returns, on time;
and when he did finally file his 2018 returns, included false business deductions in order to reduce the very substantial tax liability he faced as of February 2020.
The indictment “come[s] after the implosion of a plea deal over the summer that would have spared him jail time, putting the case on track to a possible trial as his father campaigns for reelection,” the AP reported.
The WSJ further elaborated that the nine
charges come as House Republicans threatened to hold the younger Biden in contempt in a standoff over whether he will submit to closed-door questioning next week as part of an inquiry that has centered on his foreign business dealings.
The Biden administration’s DOJ chose Weiss as the special counsel to investigate the younger Biden’s controversial business operations back in August.
Many notable Republicans criticized Weiss’ appointment at the time. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee claimed that the hiring of a special counsel ultimately answerable to President Biden himself was evidence that the “DOJ is attempting a Biden family coverup.”
From CatholicVote’s August 11 reporting:
This “coverup,” wrote the Oversight Republicans, is “in light of our Committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals.”
The WSJ on Thursday indicated that Hunter Biden’s indictment “sets up another case with the potential for a trial coinciding with the president’s re-election campaign.”
Andrew C. McCarthy of The National Review wrote Friday that the “indictment has some neon-flashing problems” for the incumbent president:
If my math is right, Hunter is looking at a maximum statutory sentence of 17 years. Under the federal sentencing guidelines, his sentence if convicted would be lighter, but not insignificant. (I presume the president would pardon his son rather than see him sentenced to prison, but that remains to be seen…
President Biden is not alluded to in the indictment, but his brother Jim is (described as one of the “business associates”), as are other Hunter partners — Rob Walker, James Gilliar, Eric Schwerin, Devon Archer, and Ye Jianming (of CEFC, the Chinese government-affiliated energy company).
“If the case were ever to go to trial, it would be very embarrassing for the Biden administration,” McCarthy concluded. “The indictment’s background allegations get into schemes with various agents of corrupt and anti-American regimes from whom the Biden family business reeled in millions of dollars.”
