America's Talking - Hunter Biden Reaches Plea Deal, Republicans Call It ‘Slap on the Wrist’

Episode Date: June 24, 2023

President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, will reportedly plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor tax-related charges. Court documents made public Tuesday show that Hunter Biden also faces a charge related to possessing a gun while being a drug user. The firearm charge will be subject to a pretrial diversion agreement, which means Hunter Biden's team cut a deal and will likely not see prison time for the gun charge. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper, we are recording this on Friday, June 23rd. And Casey, another interesting week in the Hunter Biden saga. President Joe Biden's son agreed to plead guilty this week to some charges in the federal investigation into him. Tell us what happened this week. Yeah, that's right. This kind of was a striking headline may have felt to our listeners like it came out of nowhere,

but Hunter Biden is and has been and still is really under investigation for a litany of alleged bad behavior. As you know, Dan, and this week he pled guilty to two federal misdemeanor tax-related charges. It looks like to the tune of multiple millions, Hunter Biden had not paid taxes and that doesn't end well for anybody. And on top of that, he had a gun charge, which he really, as part of the, this whole deal probably isn't going to see prison time for. It's related to his, you know, possession of a gun while being a drug user. These are all federal charges, but Hunter was able to cut kind of a deal on this that got him what Republicans are pretty upset about calling a slap on the wrist. It's hard with these plea deals. I mean, you always, when you get a plea deal,

you get much less time that you're going to. They even will knock off charges entirely if you plead, right? So that's not uncommon, but there's so much prosecutorial, um, discretion when it comes to plea deals. And of course, it's no secret that Hunter's last name is Biden. And so the question is, did he get special treatment? Hey, didn't Hunter do a lot more than this? What about those pictures of him with prostitutes and crack pipes? And hey, what about Burisma and the oil money? And so, you know, some of the Burisma stuff is still under investigation and there could be more coming on that. I wouldn't be surprised if Hunter ends up facing, you know, different things in the future. But it was finally getting some charges on the books. These are real charges.

It's not just a $500 fine, but even still, a lot of Republicans felt like it wasn't enough. So Hunter Biden's pleading guilty essentially to not paying income taxes. Yes, there's a separate gun charge related to these. But compared to the grander scheme of things, the accusations that Hunter Biden with his or for his father, President Joe Biden, received bribe money from foreign adversaries, that is not part of this plea agreement. That is still a separate investigation that's ongoing. Is that correct? Yeah. My question is, do you have to pay taxes on bribe money?

That's getting in a whole world that I don't even know. Yeah, but you're right. You hit on it. They're still pulling documents on this. I mean, we wrote about the center square.com, that House Republicans, I believe it was last week, said that they have seen evidence that both, and we have not seen this, but this is what House Republicans say that they have seen on their committees and the committees that are investigating this, that they have seen evidence that not only Hunter

Biden, but President Biden himself received these $5 million bribes, is what they, you know, I don't know what else to call him, bribes to end a corruption investigation into Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Which Hunter Biden was a member of the board? Is that? Right. Yeah. And of course, you know, how did he get that job?

How was he possibly qualified? I mean, that's probably the most public evidence that's really raised skepticism. Now, he wouldn't be the first family member in a presidential family to get. maybe an admission to a college or a job that they didn't necessarily deserve because of their name. But it does raise a lot of questions and has more financial interest tied to it. So that's still going on. Lawmakers, you know, House oversight is still looking into that. It's kind of unclear to what degree and with what aggression, you know, federal law enforcement

could be looking into that. And even who would have jurisdiction on international bribes for the president's son. But I think if, you know, house oversight and those lawmakers are able to make public enough of the damning information that they sort of claim to have, then at the very least, it could be really difficult for President Biden politically. Then it may force the hand of some kind of investigation. And now, if Trump gets back in office, which is entirely possible because he's pulling top of the list in the Republican primary, and is he going to go after, you know, former President Biden, is he going after Hunter Biden in the same way that the DOJ is currently going after him right now.

And it's important to say that President Biden has dismissed these bribery allegations. I think he called them malarkey at one point recently, but you bring up the presidential election with all these investigations into President Biden and his son, of course, former President Trump has already been charged in the classified documents case where federal authorities found a bunch of classified documents at his Mar-a-home in Florida and alleged that Trump refused to, at least initially refused to cooperate and turn over those classified documents. You've got these ongoing investigations into both frontrunners as a sitting incumbent, let's face it, President Biden, unless he backs out himself for health reasons or whatever, he's going to be the Democratic nominee. Trump leads his

opponents significantly by double digits. Florida Governor Ronda Sanis is his closest rival on the Republican primary side, and he's like 20 points behind Trump right now. I mean, this just sets up a bizarre crazy 2004 presidential election, doesn't it? Very bizarre, very unprecedented. You know, politically, I'm not sure how much these charges really hurt any, or these kind of investigations hurt anyone because, I mean, we see all the Trump supporters just say these allegations are politically motivated targeting. All the Biden supporters say this is just nonsense conspiracy, and then they still support the people they want. I think in a way, these kind of cancel each other out politically, whether it's Burisma payments or classified documents. There's so much

much going on in so many details and both seem like they could be guilty. And so what are you going to do? I mean, there's no squeaky clean candidate over here at the top of the ticket saying, hey, I'm the anti-corruption candidate. I have the perfect record. So when it's like that, they kind of can't switch other out. Now, what could really make an impact or be interesting is if, you know, Trump's, in particular, his legal proceedings start to really pick up speed going into 2024. I was shocked. There was also news this week that the judge in the classified doctor, documents case, has set a trial date for August, not August 2024, August two months from now. Usually these kinds of these huge profile cases take much longer than that. Do you expect this to

actually go to trial in two months? I do not expect it. I think, you know, Trump has a great legal team. He has a history of getting these kind of trials delayed for a long time. And as you said, you said it, these big cases often do get delayed. I mean, that's part of the reason that you hire really expensive lawyers, really wealthy, is that you may not be, you know, get off innocent, but you can buy yourself, you know, years in trial time, right, to be with your family before you have to go to prison, right? So even, you know, people who know they're going to be convicted will hire wealthy attorneys to get the trial delayed for that reason. So I will be very surprised if this actually, you know, happens in August, as you said, it will be delayed.

But even then, how much is it delayed? It's more the question to me, is it six months? Because if it's only six months, that's still... Yeah, that's in the heat of the the primary season. Exactly. Exactly. So if it's not, even if it's a year, it's still going to be, you know, two or three months before the election. So I think he'll definitely get it delayed, but I'm not sure he can get it fully delayed until after the election. And then can he pardon himself, Dan, our resident legal expert, can the president pardon himself? Not going to go down that road either. Casey, thankfully, we've run out of time so I don't have to answer that question. Listeners can keep up with this story and more out of Washington, D.C.

Harker and his team at thecentersquare.com or Casey Harper. I'm Dan McCaleb. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.