On the menu today: CNN reports that federal prosecutors are debating charging the president’s son, Hunter Biden, with alleged tax-law violations and making a false statement in connection with his purchase of a firearm. Bringing any charges would be a welcome step toward dispelling the sense that there is one set of lenient laws for children of the elite, such as Hunter, and another set of stricter laws for the rest of us. But the whole sordid tale is a vivid illustration of one of life’s more difficult lessons, particularly surrounding addiction: If you really love someone, you need to let them experience the painful consequences of their bad decisions. Protecting them from those consequences only enables them to make even worse decisions down the road.
Federal Prosecutors Still Weighing How to Handle Hunter Biden
A few days ago, our Charlie Cooke contrasted the case of a former 911 dispatcher named Yunis Isaac Mejia with that of President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. Mejia was sentenced to 21 months in jail for having attached a buttstock to a pistol:
Under the terms of the 1934 National Firearms Act, any firearm that has both a stock and a barrel shorter than 16 inches in total length must be classed as a “short-barreled rifle,” obligating the owner to federally register it and pay a $200 tax. In the course of his conversations with an FBI informant, Mejia made it clear that he understood the contours of this law — and that he had even followed it before — but that he did not wish to bother doing so with this particular firearm because he was not a “criminal” and did not want to “pay the government two hundred extra dollars just to put pieces of metal together.” For this, he was arrested and charged with a felony.
Charlie noted that there is no doubt about Mejia’s guilt, but there are fair questions to ask about just what kind of threat to the public he could represent:
At the time the FBI’s sting was ordered, Mejia had no criminal record, no documentation of mental illness, and no history of substance abuse. He was prohibited neither from purchasing nor possessing firearms, and he had passed background checks at both the state level (for his concealed-carry permit) and at the federal level (for his suppressors).
By contrast, Hunter Biden self-evidently committed a felony when he filled out the paperwork to purchase a firearm:
POLITICO obtained copies of the Firearms Transaction Record and a receipt for the gun dated Oct. 12, 2018.
Hunter responded “no” to a question on the transaction record that asks, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” Five years earlier, he had been discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine, and he and family members have spoken about his history of drug use.
Lying on the form is a felony, though prosecutions for it are exceedingly rare.
In April 2021, Hunter Biden promoted his memoir, Beautiful Things, on Colorado’s National Public Radio, and said “I got clean, close to two years ago. . . . I would be, you know, holding a board meeting for the World Food Program and I’d have to excuse myself to go to the bathroom to smoke crack. And it became something that was literally every 15 minutes.” That would mean Biden was still abusing drugs and alcohol when he purchased the firearm.
Nor is it easy to argue that Hunter Biden can be considered a responsible gun owner and no threat to anyone; texts between Hunter and sister-in-law Hallie Biden revealed that she took away his gun and threw it into a trash can because she believed Hunter wasn’t safe with it in his possession. Hallie sent texts stating, “I just want you safe. That was not safe. . . . I’m scared you would use it.” (This is not how a red-flag law is supposed to work.) The saga of Biden’s gun has all kinds of troubling questions, including whether the U.S. Secret Service tried to seize the paperwork regarding his purchase.
Now, CNN reports that nearly four years later, federal prosecutors might finally be getting around to pressing charges:
Discussions recently have centered around possibly bringing charges that could include alleged tax violations and making a false statement in connection with Biden’s purchase of a firearm at a time he would have been prohibited from doing so because of his acknowledged struggles with drug addiction. . . .
The Justice Department investigation initially focused on Hunter Biden’s financial and business activities in foreign countries dating to when Joe Biden was vice president. But investigators have examined a swath of broader conduct, including whether Hunter Biden and associates violated money laundering, campaign finance, tax and foreign lobbying laws, as well as whether Hunter Biden broke federal firearm and other regulations, multiple sources said.
As the investigation has entered its final stages, prosecutors have narrowed their focus to tax and gun-related charges, the people say.
A few days ago, the editors of NR pointed out that, as bad as they are, “Hunter Biden’s taxes are the least important ‘affair’ the Justice Department should be scrutinizing. For that matter, Hunter Biden is the least important person who should be under the microscope. The major question is whether Hunter is a vehicle by which his father, the now-president of the United States, indirectly cashed in on his political influence.” Indeed, there are too many messages on Hunter’s laptop — it is now proven to have been Hunter’s laptop — that suggest Joe Biden was much more clued in to his son’s business dealings than his public statements originally indicated.
Earlier this year, I tried to summarize the sheer breadth and depth of the scandals surrounding Hunter Biden:
It’s not just that the son of a prominent political figure spent years working as a lobbyist and influence-peddler in Washington, while insisting he never influenced his father’s votes or decisions. It’s not just that the son of a prominent political figure has a serious drug problem; that’s a tragedy, and lots of American families can relate to seeing a loved one struggle with the all-consuming demon of addiction. It’s not just that the son of a prominent political figure has had messy relationships, or hooked up with his late brother’s widow. It’s not just that the son of a prominent political figure had a child out of wedlock with a stripper. It’s not just that the son of a prominent political figure is cashing in on his family name, or that he has shady business partners. It’s not just that the son of a prominent political figure was hired do to minimal work on the corporate board of a foreign gas company.
It’s that Hunter Biden is all of that, combined, and then he decides one day he’s going to be an artist, and starts selling his paintings for five-figure sums to buyers who will not be disclosed to the public, in an arrangement that enraged even Walter Shaub, head of the Office of Government Ethics in the Obama administration. “That’s $6.5 million going to the president’s son for being the president’s son, not for being an artist and I just think that’s absolutely appalling,” Shaub said.
These sorts of issues have been around the Biden family for decades. Back in September 2019, I wrote out what was, at the time, the most comprehensive timeline of Hunter Biden’s scandals, ethical breaches, and controversies. And yet Biden, and a largely friendly media, have treated any coverage or scrutiny of Hunter Biden as somehow a social faux pas, like you’re doing something rude or mean by noticing the glaring problems hanging over the younger Biden.
There was one anecdote that seemed to illustrate the core problem around Hunter Biden and his father:
Hunter’s meeting with Li and his relationship with BHR attracted little attention at the time, but some of Biden’s advisers were worried that Hunter, by meeting with a business associate during his father’s visit, would expose the Vice-President to criticism. The former senior White House aide told me that Hunter’s behavior invited questions about whether he “was leveraging access for his benefit, which just wasn’t done in that White House. Optics really mattered, and that seemed to be cutting it pretty close, even if nothing nefarious was going on.” When I asked members of Biden’s staff whether they discussed their concerns with the Vice-President, several of them said that they had been too intimidated to do so. “Everyone who works for him has been screamed at,” a former adviser told me.
Almost everyone around Hunter Biden could see that he had astonishingly self-destructive judgment and represented a walking, talking ethical breach. And yet, no one could do anything about it, because Joe Biden played the, “How dare you accuse my son!” card at the first sign of trouble. We saw it throughout the 2020 campaign, such as when Savannah Guthrie would ask the most routine and fair questions — “Do you think it was wrong for him to take that position [at Burisma], knowing it was really because that company wanted access to you?” In that interview, Biden snapped back angrily. “Well, that’s not true! You are saying things — you do not know what you are talking about! No one said that! Who said that? Who said that? Who said that?” Somewhere along the line, Joe Biden learned he could avoid hard questions or a difficult conversation by showing flashes of temper, and he’s succeeded far too often with that strategy.
No doubt, Joe Biden loves Hunter Biden, despite his flaws. But the tragic irony is that this 24-7, all-encompassing defense was just about the most destructive thing Joe Biden could have done; Hunter Biden kept slipping deeper and deeper into trouble because his father’s name and influence spared him the worst consequences of his actions with metronomic regularity.
The Department of Justice has kicked the can down the road on Hunter Biden for far too long. It’s time to rip the band-aid off, press charges, and in all likelihood make the first son accept a plea deal.
ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, there’s a major political risk in the Biden administration’s choice to use the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the universal scapegoat for U.S. economic problems; for the second time in two years, the Biden team learns you can’t just “shut down a virus”; and someone on the White House advance team thought it was a good idea to have President Biden speak in front of what looked like a landfill.