A federal grand jury in California returned a multi-count indictment against Hunter Biden late Thursday, charging the president’s son with multiple tax offenses. While the indictment detailed some sordid spending sprees by Hunter Biden, the crimes charged were so basic that to say Special Counsel David Weiss opted for the low-hanging fruit would be an understatement. Weiss instead limited the charges to the crimes that fell into his lap. The simplicity of the charges underscores the protect-Biden racket that operated out of the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office for the last several years.
Late Thursday, news broke that Hunter Biden had been charged in a nine-count indictment on multiple tax offenses, including three felonies. Specifically, Weiss charged the president’s son with willfully failing to pay his federal income taxes in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019; willfully failing to file income tax returns in 2017 and 2018; and willfully filing in 2018 a false 1040 personal tax return and a false corporate tax return for Owasco PC, while declaring “under the penalties of perjury,” that both tax returns were true and correct. The indictment further charged Hunter Biden with willfully attempting to evade paying income tax in 2018 by, among other things, signing a false income tax return, underreporting income, and reporting false business expenses on his Owasco PC tax return.
In total, the indictment charged Hunter Biden with failing to pay well over $1 million of taxes owed to the federal government. The indictment further alleged that rather than cover his tax bill — or “pay his fair share,” as his father is wont to say — Hunter Biden, over the same time period, blew nearly $5 million on an “extravagant lifestyle.”
To stress the point, the indictment included a table summarizing Hunter Biden’s expenditures from 2016-2019 in various categories, including ATM/cash withdrawals of over $1.6 million, payments to various women of $683,212, clothing of nearly $400,000, and another $300,000-plus going to tuition for his adult daughter. Then there was the nearly $200,000 spent on “adult” entertainment, with about $50,000 more used for other entertainment and sports.
But for all his frivolous spending, there was a glimpse of practicality among the other expenditures, with some money contributed to a Roth IRA. Clearly, Hunter Biden was planning for retirement — his father’s.
In addition to these details, the 56-page complaint elaborated on Hunter Biden’s alleged efforts to evade taxes and his dissipated lifestyle, while stressing the president’s son had both the means to pay his taxes and the opportunity to do so after he had regained his sobriety.
What was missing from the lengthy indictment, however, was anything new of substance. On the contrary, the charges were so straightforward and stale that it’s incomprehensible they were not brought against Hunter Biden in 2019 or early 2020. The only logical explanation for the delay in charging Hunter was to interfere in the 2020 election by refraining from the Democrat candidate’s son.
Earlier testimony from the IRS whistleblowers bolsters that conclusion. The agents who came forward with complaints of political favoritism shown to the president’s son claimed the investigation was slow-walked and that they were prevented from taking investigative steps long before the November 2020 election.
However, it is not merely the failure of U.S. Attorney Weiss to charge Hunter Biden before the November 2020 general election that exposes the malfeasance of the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office; it is also the sweetheart plea deal Weiss’s team offered Hunter Biden. Under that since-soured plea agreement, Hunter Biden would have been allowed to plead to two misdemeanor tax offenses and enter into a pretrial diversion agreement on a gun charge.
Thursday’s indictment establishes that the federal prosecutors in Delaware had ample evidence and cause to charge Hunter Biden with multiple felony tax counts. And since Weiss has promised that Attorney General Merrick Garland assured him of the authority to prosecute Hunter Biden in California, there was no good reason for Weiss to play a weak hand and offer Hunter Biden a veritable get-out-of-jail-free card.
While that deal fell through, Thursday’s tougher indictment against Hunter Biden still should cause a great shrug of indifference because the more serious crimes — and the ones that could reach other members of the Biden-family syndicate — remain ignored.
Other than a passing reference in the opening paragraph to Hunter Biden being a lobbyist, Thursday’s indictment ignores the other potential criminal charges for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations, money laundering, and bribery.
The House oversight committees continue to expose evidence implicating not merely Hunter Biden but Jim Biden and Joe Biden in such offenses. Special Counsel Weiss, however, appears comfortable merely wrapping up the prosecutions that fell into his lap — a far cry from equal justice under the law.