The insulting farce of the Hunter Biden plea deal

Over at The Epoch Times, Roger Simon states the commonsense truth that the "Hunter Biden 'Plea Deal' Is an Insult to Our Intelligence." He quotes presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy:

It's no accident that the farcical Hunter Biden "plea deal" comes right after the Trump indictment: it's the perfect fig leaf to pretend that "no one is above the law," while absolutely putting certain people above the law. It's an Orwellian gesture that gives the news media exactly the level of cover that they needed.

The quote is very good, but I would offer this small improvement: "... while making it absolutely clear that certain people are above the law." The fig leaf is obviously and outrageously farcical on purpose. It is, as Ramaswamy says, "perfect" if and only if it is meant to send us — those of us Americans who pay any attention to the news — a message: "We don't care what you think. We no longer answer to you."

That is their message about the 2020 election, too. The farcical claim that the 2020 election was on the up-and-up is transparently and purposefully a lie. Their message: "We stole it, and we don't care if you know it."

Evidently, a majority of Americans don't believe the lie about the election. However, some Americans are not willing to admit the obvious. No doubt many of them know better. They support the narrative that is approved by the propagandists in the "news" media. They are pitching in, doing their part. Then there are those who are going along to get along. They are engaged in some degree of self-deception. Since the obvious truth is so unspeakably horrible, they prefer to play along instead of confronting the too-horrible truth.

WSJ OPINION
REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Hunter Biden’s ‘Fair’ Tax Share
IRS agents reveal details of the son’s scheming that mock the President’s tax moralizing.
By The Editorial Board

June 25, 2023 4:27 pm ET

Journal Editorial Report: The IRS agent’s detailed list of abuses deserves an answer.

President Biden has campaigned far and wide that America’s rich should pay their “fair” share of taxes, and he’s giving the Internal Revenue Service billions more to enforce it. Does he include his son Hunter among the rich who should pay what they owe?

The question is highly relevant after last week’s under-reported testimony from two IRS whistleblowers about their investigation of Hunter’s taxes. Hunter agreed to plead guilty last week to two misdemeanor charges of “willful failure” to pay some $200,000 in tax for years 2017 and 2018. But the two whistleblowers, testifying under oath before the House Ways and Means Committee, revealed details of Hunter’s tax maneuvering that make a mockery of his father’s tax moralizing.

***
The agents reported that an IRS team in January 2022 finalized a document of some 80 pages recommending that Hunter be charged with tax violations for each of his six tax returns from 2014 through 2019.

IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley said Hunter’s 2014 and 2015 returns involved a “scheme to evade his income taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon.” At issue was the $83,000 a month Hunter received to sit on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company. The second (anonymous) whistleblower explained that in 2014 Hunter arranged a series of “sham” transactions so he “didn’t report any of the money he earned from Burisma”—about $400,000 in 2014.

The whistleblowers say Hunter directed Burisma to pay his money to Rosemont Seneca Bohai, or RSB, an entity owned by his business partner Devon Archer, who was convicted of fraud in 2018. They say RSB would send the money to Hunter, who then “booked it as a loan.” One obvious tax problem, explains the second whistleblower, is that “you can’t loan yourself your own money.”

Mr. Shapley says this loan ruse is a “textbook” evasion scheme, something “I learned at basic training.” When someone claims a payment is a loan for tax purposes, the IRS looks for three things: You’ve “got to have a promissory note, you got to have defined interest, and you got to have repayments,” Mr. Shapley says. In Hunter’s case, “none of those were included.” RSB also booked the payment as an “expense”—meaning that “even the two parties didn’t treat it the same way.”

The committee also released an email showing that another Hunter business partner, Eric Schwerin, told Hunter in 2017 that Hunter had “unreported Burisma income” and needed to “amend your 2014 returns.” Hunter ignored the warning and later that year ended his relationship with Mr. Schwerin.

The second whistleblower says 2014 records show RSB paid more than $10,000 in Hunter medical bills, and purchased a $142,000 Porsche for Hunter’s benefit via other money from a Kazakhstan businessman. The whistleblower says Hunter didn’t report this as income.

The IRS team recommended that Hunter be prosecuted on felony charges of tax evasion for 2014 and false tax filings and a misdemeanor charge for 2015 of failure to pay tax. Yet because the U.S. Attorney waited so long to make a prosecutorial decision, the six-year statute of limitations expired. Hunter thus won’t pay taxes on more than $400,000 in unreported income for these years. Mr. Shapley says: “The purposeful exclusion of the 2014 and 2015 years sanitized the most substantive criminal conduct and concealed material facts.”

Also notable are Hunter’s filings in 2018 and 2019, for which the IRS team also recommended felony charges of tax evasion and false returns. The second whistleblower testified that Hunter underreported his income for 2018 by anywhere from $267,000 to $500,000—depending on how conservatively the IRS counted. He did this, claims the whistleblower, by falsifying “business” deductions.

The whistleblower says this included deducting thousands paid to “no-show employees”—including “a prostitute” that Hunter claimed was a “West Coast assistant.” He deducted $10,000 for a “golf club member deposit,” money that IRS agents say “went to pay for a sex club.” He deducted $30,000 for a child’s Columbia University tuition. He also deducted a hotel room for who agents believed to be “one of his drug dealers,” hotel rooms for his girlfriend at the time, and two nights for “a hotel room for his dad, Joe Biden.”

The IRS agents say they also saw correspondence showing Hunter in that year attempting to describe income as a “loan”—though this time his accountants rejected the request. All told, the IRS team recommended that Hunter face felony charges for 2014, 2018 and 2019. They also recommended misdemeanor charges for “failure to file or pay” for five of the six years.

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