The yearslong probe into Hunter Biden’s criminal activities may end with a whimper.
On June 20, the president’s son agreed to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor charges. He will cooperate with prosecutors in order to dismiss a firearm charge, according to a letter from U.S. attorney David Weiss. Weiss seems to have agreed to recommend probation, meaning that Biden will likely stay out of jail. (READ MORE: To Serve and Protect the Bidens — Continued)
Biden will plead guilty to failing to pay income taxes on monies he received in 2017 and 2018. At the time, he was acting as an international lawyer in places like China and Ukraine, where he obtained a lucrative position on the board of a gas and oil company, Burisma Holdings. Two years after disclosing his finances during a federal probe, Biden paid back the government for outstanding charges.
Prosecutors will likely recommend two years of probation, the Washington Post said, but the proposed plea deal will still have to be approved by a federal judge.
Biden has also “agreed to enter a Pretrial Diversion Agreement,” the letter stated, meaning that he will not technically plead guilty to that crime. It is an option typically reserved for nonviolent offenders who struggle with substance abuse.
Biden’s lawyer, Christopher Clark, said that these agreements would resolve the criminal investigation and that his client is looking forward to moving on.
“I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life,” Clark said. “He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”
Although the federal investigation is over, Republicans have said they will continue investigating the Biden family’s corrupt dealings with foreign countries.
Start with the Ukraine Burisma bribery criminal allegations, of which Sen. Grassley last week announced the existence of recordings involving Hunter & "the Big Guy" Joe Biden. That's getting swept under the rug.
— Robert Henneke (@robhenneke) June 20, 2023
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has spent the last month urging the FBI to transparency regarding a confidential human source, demanding that they release FD-1023, a report on the matter.
Grassley claimed that “the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden” possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Biden and two recordings which may include the then-vice president.
The foreign national, Mykola Zlochevsky, founder and owner of Burisma Holdings, seems to have retained the recordings as a kind of “insurance policy.” Allegedly, the company had paid father and son $5 million each to influence policy decisions and to ensure the dismissal of a prosecutor looking into Burisma’s corruption.
On Thursday, Grassley asked the FBI whether its investigation into Hunter Biden had included bribery allegations.
“It likely means that the FBI defined the scope of the federal investigation into the president’s son so narrowly that agents lacked the authority to properly probe a ‘highly credible’ confidential human source’s reporting implicating the Biden family,” Margot Cleveland, a senior reporter at the Federalist, wrote Tuesday.
The White House had little to say about the matter.
“The President and First Lady love their son and support [Hunter] as he continues to rebuild his life,” a White House spokesperson said. “We will have no further comment.”
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