The Daily - Hunter Biden’s Day in Court

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

On Wednesday morning, Hunter Biden was scheduled to a guilty plea in a Delaware courtroom, marking the end of a yearslong federal investigation that many Republicans believed would put the president��s son in prison, and put an end to the Biden presidency.Michael Schmidt, who covers national security and federal investigations for The New York Times, explains why none of that has happened.Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times who covers national security and federal investigations.Background reading: Under an agreement with the Justice Department, Hunter Biden accepted probation for filing his taxes late.Republicans in Congress sought to block the plea deal, arguing that it had been tainted by political interference.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. This morning, when Hunter Biden enters a guilty plea in a Delaware courtroom, it will mark the end of a years-long federal investigation that many Republicans believed would put the president's son in prison and put an end to the Biden presidency. Today, my colleague Mike Schmidt on why none of that has happened. It's Wednesday, July 26th.

So, Mike, for the past several years, we've come to understand that the president's son, Hunter Biden, was under federal investigation in a case that had become profoundly politicized. And today, as that investigation wraps up, Hunter Biden will enter a plea deal. So set that scene for us. In a few hours, Hunter Biden will walk into a federal courtroom in Delaware, and he will plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges. Essentially, he did not pay his taxes, pretty big tax bills, for two years. And he will admit to having lied to the federal government when he purchased a handgun. Because when he bought that handgun, he, like every American that tries to buy a gun, is asked, are you using drugs at this point? Like on a form. Correct. You know, he had to fill out a form and he checked the box that

he had not been using drugs. When in fact, he had. Correct. Okay. And what kind of charge is that? You said the first two were misdemeanors. The third thing is this unusual resolution of sorts of a criminal matter. It's called a diversion agreement. They are going to divert the prosecution of him on this charge. And if he stays clean for two years and he continues to not own a gun, he will never be prosecuted on it. Okay, so in totality, when he enters this plea deal for the three issues you just raised,

what kind of a prison sentence is he looking at? If everything goes according to plan, basically the agreement worked out by the defense lawyers and the prosecutors, he will not go to prison for any time. So we're looking here at the president's son entering a plea deal for a couple of misdemeanors and not going to be serving any prison time whatsoever. That doesn't seem like all that big a prosecution. In fact, it seems like a very small prosecution. Is that what we had expected? Well, if you were a reporter who was trying to figure out what was going on here for the past several months and several years, this is not a surprise. Hmm. But if you are a Republican or a Donald Trump supporter or someone who has been ingesting a lot of Donald Trump and conservative media, then this is a very surprising outcome. criminal matter that was going to expose not only Biden's family members, but the president himself

as being someone that had taken money from foreigners to change American policy, someone who was completely compromised by his foreign ties, and that this whole matter was going to end the Biden family and essentially allow Donald Trump to become president again. Right. It was going all the way to the top. And it was basically the Watergate of the Biden era in the eyes and the imagination of the conservative movement. It was going to end this five-decade-long political career of Joe Biden. Which is not what happened or anything close to it. So help us understand, Mike, what Hunter Biden actually did, why it ever triggered a federal investigation,

and why for so many Americans who, as you said, were ingesting this Republican approach to this case, the thought was that it would ever become something that big and important. So in some ways, it's just the story of a father and his son. Hunter Biden is the second son of Joe Biden, and he ended up becoming a lobbyist. He made a fair amount of money in the early 2000s in that job, but then his father becomes vice president and he stopped his lobbying work. Probably because his father became vice president. The optics were too complicated to be a lobbyist and have your father as vice president. But Hunter Biden had a lifestyle that he needed to fund and maintain. So in an attempt to keep that lifestyle, he heads down a different path. Which was? Hunter Biden was going to find opportunities abroad where he could advise and consult.

Hmm. Which kind of sounds just as problematic as lobbying when your dad is VP, but for some reason he thought that was the better route. So he heads down this path with a business partner and reaches these consulting contracts, these deals with foreigners. What kind of deals? Give us some examples. The most important high- high profile one of them all was with a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma. Burisma had a lot of problems.

They were accused of being corrupt. And the Obama administration, with Joe Biden leading the charge, was supporting investigations into Burisma as part of an international anti-corruption push. And so Burisma was trying to fix their reputation and their issues abroad and in the United States. And it's around this time that they hired Hunter Biden to be on their board. So this is a pretty sticky wicket, as they say, from the get-go. In Washington, where optics on conflicts of interest are really important and taken very seriously, this is not something that looks so kosher. And it raised concerns inside the then-Obama administration about what was really going on here.

So what ends up happening with this messy arrangement? So Hunter Biden, probably not someone that strikes you as a Ukraine or energy expert, gets a job paying him $600,000 a year to be on this board to consult and advise and be a board member. So this is kind of what it looks like it is, right? Burisma has probably hired Hunter Biden with the idea that he might help them get out of some of the sticky situations they're in, knowing that his dad is vice president. Why else would they pay him that much money? It raises some darn good,-fashioned good government questions. Like, okay, you have a vice president of the United States. He has a son.

What should that son be able to do to pursue his own career in a way that is fair to the son but also doesn't tarnish American foreign policy? Right. And there are a lot of potentially great options out there. And this probably isn't the best one. This is a smack dab fair question. Should the vice president's son be doing this? Does it compromise American foreign policy and American efforts to, you know, do what it wants to do abroad. So because of this dynamic, because of Hunter Biden's Ukraine dealings, it casts a shadow or questions over everything that Joe Biden does in regards to Ukraine, including his efforts to have a prosecutor removed who was looking at Burisma. Right. And I remember this. It was because, according to Biden and Obama, that prosecutor wasn't being vigilant enough in his pursuit of corruption.

It just takes this situation and it says, OK, what's really going on here? Maybe for reasons that are legitimate, maybe for reasons that aren't. maybe for reasons that are legitimate, maybe for reasons that aren't. And like, what does Biden say throughout this period about what his relationship is to his son Hunter's work when it comes to Ukraine? He says he has no relation to his son's work. But he really doesn't have to address it because it's not a big public issue. Right, because he's just vice president. He's vice president. It's the end of the administration.

And he's not running for president in 2017. But then all of a sudden, he is by 2020. So bring us to that point in the story. So by 2018 and 2019, Donald Trump realizes that he's going to be running for re-election and the person who he thinks is most likely to beat him is Joe Biden. Now when Biden's son walks away with millions of dollars from Ukraine and he knows nothing and they're paying him millions of dollars, that's corruption. and he knows nothing and they're paying him millions of dollars.

That's corruption. And Trump starts to raise the issue of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Burisma. Well, I think Biden is going down and I think his whole situation, because now you may very well find that there are many other countries that they scam. Trump comes up with an argument that Joe Biden is corrupt because of this. What Biden did is a disgrace. What his son did is a disgrace. The son took money from Ukraine. The son took money from China.

He starts to pressure his Justice Department to do something about this. So I would say that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens. And he dispatches his longtime lawyer and confidant, Rudy Giuliani, to Ukraine to go gather evidence that can then be brought back to the United States Justice Department to be used in a prosecution. As Trump is casting about for any way to raise this, he has his now infamous perfect phone call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Right. In which he says, I would really appreciate it if you could get to the bottom of the Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Burisma story for me. By the way, it might make a big difference in terms of some of that aid that the U.S. sends to you. At the same time that he's holding up much-needed aid to prevent the Russians from overrunning the country.

Right. This, of course, becomes the basis for the first congressional impeachment of Donald Trump. Correct. Trump's first impeachment. Right. So in the background, as Trump is kicking up all this stuff about Hunter, As Trump is kicking up all this stuff about Hunter, a real Justice Department investigation is taking hold. The Justice Department officials in Washington took all the questions about Hunter Biden and they gave them to the Trump-appointed United States attorney in Delaware, David Weiss, to look into. And this is 2000? This is starting in 2018 into 19.

So as Trump is trying to get Rudy Giuliani to gallivant the world looking for evidence and is getting impeached for all this stuff, whatever, these federal prosecutors are digging into Hunter Biden's life. Got it. So they're starting this examination basically of everything that Hunter Biden has done. All of the deals, all of his foreign interactions, all of his taxes, everything. They're looking at his entire life. And it's not known publicly that this is going on. It feels like this is the moment where two universes start to diverge. In one universe, like you said, there's an unseen federal investigation going on trying to figure out what is the what with Hunter Biden. And in the other universe, because you say it's 2019,

Trump is running for re-election and eventually against Joe Biden. And he's, as you say, kicking up all this stuff, spreading claims. What you're trying to say, I think, is that, look, there's the political and there's the law enforcement. So politically, Donald Trump is out there saying Joe Biden and his son are corrupt and it's all because of Ukraine. On the other hand, where no one can see, off to the side are these prosecutors who are beginning to look at every aspect of Hunter Biden's life. Right. And the one we, the public sees is the Trump one. And it becomes a drumbeat because of it's coming up at major moments in the campaign.

Hunter, you know nothing about energy. You know nothing about child. You know nothing about anything, frankly. Hunter, you know nothing about energy. You know nothing about child. You know nothing about anything, frankly. Hunter, you're a loser. Why did you get $1.5 billion, Hunter? This is a major tenant of his stump speeches and interviews and tweets and everything. What did he do with Barista to deserve $183,000? It becomes so at the forefront of the campaign that Donald Trump, at one of the debates,

raises the question of Hunter's conduct. Did Barista pay him $183,000 a month with no experience and energy? My son did nothing wrong at Barista. I think he did. Mr. President. As son did nothing wrong at Burisma. I think he did. Mr. President. The only guy that did something. As much as Biden was adamant that there was nothing to what Trump was saying, Trump is essentially seeding the country with notions of Hunter Biden's conduct.

All right, another day, another explosive report surrounding zero experience Hunter Biden. He's kicking off all these different ideas and theories and conspiracy theories and allegations that are covered widely in the conservative media. And it's not just about Hunter Biden. It's now about Joe Biden, as he now appears to have put national security at risk so that his family could cash in and make millions. Hunter Biden and his business partners helped rich Chinese investors and members of the Chinese Communist Party obtain meetings with then-Vice President Joe Biden. There's a money-ordering case that I could prove in four minutes of $14 million involving

the Bidens. As Trump, in the final weeks of the election, is looking for any way to get the upper hand in an election he knows he's losing, something of a gift for him appears. The evidence is not just there, it's overwhelming. And that was Hunter Biden's laptop. So, Hunter Biden had struggled mightily with addiction. He hit a low point in 2018 where he was smoking crack with strangers. In the midst of that, he had dropped off his laptop, which he thought he damaged with water, at a repair shop in Delaware. He never went back to pick it up.

By the summer of 2020, the height of the 2020 campaign, that laptop is in the hands of Rudy Giuliani. And Trump and Giuliani think that they have the October surprise that will keep Trump in office. Right. They believe that whatever is on that laptop is the key to unlocking what they have long believed and told their supporters is the true corrupt nature of the relationship

between Hunter, Joe Biden, and all the work Hunter's doing. It's going to be there in some email. And the laptop is not pretty. Its contents are very ugly. Because what it is, is a lot of photos and messages Hunter Biden took and sent at the height of his addiction. But does that laptop end up containing anything that shows something we didn't already know

about his relationship to his dad and his business? It doesn't go much further than these major questions that have hung over Hunter Biden's businesses. But of course, this does not end up being an October surprise that changes the dynamic of this election. Trump loses, now famously doesn't accept that fact, but loses. But there is, if you're Trump and you want this story to not go away, the reality that a federal investigation is still going on in the background. Yeah, but Trump didn't know that. He didn't.

In the weeks after the election, Hunter Biden puts out a statement and says, I'm the subject of an IRS tax investigation. And Donald Trump says, what the heck? I didn't know about this. I didn't know about the federal investigation. The Attorney General Bill Barr had kept it from Trump. And Trump is furious with Barr for not having publicized it to help him in the lead up to the election. stage, the only hope that he and the right have that Hunter Biden is going to take down Joe Biden is this still ongoing investigation in Delaware. But Trump and the right now have an issue. That investigation will now be overseen by Joe Biden's Justice Department and his hand-picked Attorney General.

We'll be right back. We'll be right back. So, Mike, what happens once this federal investigation leaves the Trump administration and is inherited by President Biden's Justice Department? So, for Biden, he knows it's clear as day that if he tries to meddle in this at all, he's going to get crushed for it. So he is going to go to great pains to ensure that he has no influence or the appearance of that influence over the investigation. And what does that look like, the great pains that Biden and his administration go to to preserve the independence of the Hunter Biden investigation? So the attorney general, Merrick Garland, without consulting Joe Biden, keeps on that prosecutor in Delaware, David Weiss, who was appointed by Trump. Right, which is a little unusual, as I understand it. New presidents of different parties come in.

They often replace all the U.S. attorneys. They kept this guy on. They keep this guy on because he is going to finish the Hunter Biden investigation. Got it. And they thought this was the best way to insulate that investigation from the appearance of politics.

And so what does this U.S. attorney from Delaware, what does he ultimately find? And what do we end up learning about how much investigating he's actually been doing? Because as you said, this is all going on in the background. So Weiss turns over every rock or pretty much every rock in Hunter Biden's life,

particularly from this period of time when he was addicted to drugs and was engaging in these risky, unusual dealings with foreigners. And while the accusations and the things that Trump said were grandiose, remember, this was the investigation that was going to expose the Biden family as criminally corrupt. Right. This investigation by Weiss that looks at all these different things ends up narrowing to questions of under Biden's taxes and this purchase of a gun that he made in 2018. And Mike, what's our understanding of why the investigation narrows so dramatically? Why, after turning over every rock,

looking at every deal, whether it was the Burisma deal or deals like that, that Weiss turns to what kind of feels like pretty pedestrian criminal issues. So if you accept Weiss's investigation at face value, it's that he looked at all these things, and while they may raise these good old-fashioned government questions of appearance of impropriety

or why is this elected official's son doing these deals, there's no criminality there. Right. Could be ugly and still be legal. Correct. But because he's turned over the rocks in Hunter Biden's life from a particularly rocky period of time, he finds some stuff that isn't kosher. Right. The tax issues, the gun issue. And, Mike, I wonder, how do prosecutors normally think about crimes or alleged crimes like those? So, legal experts will give you all sorts of opinions, but my reporting on this shows that

these crimes are usually not charged. Why not? Because they're too small. Hmm. They're too small, Boer. They're typically dealt with through a civil fine. But Weiss finds himself in a situation where he has found criminality

that the president's son has engaged in. Mm-hmm. So is it the best thing for justice to avert your gaze of that criminality? What does that say? So this is an interesting case where because the investigation has gone on for so long and has dug around in so many corners, it's pretty hard to not charge Hunter Biden with anything politically speaking, even when the things he can be charged with might not normally merit federal prosecutorial charges.

That's the weird position that Weiss is in. And I guess the weird position that Hunter Biden gets in. This is kind of a strange case where Hunter Biden's name and the position he's in are not helping him the way perhaps they did with this deal with Burisma, but are hurting him when it comes to being charged with crimes that might be, as you say, kind of small. Correct. But of course, Mike, Republicans obviously don't see it this way.

This case has turned out for them to be a major, major disappointment, given their expectations for how it would turn out and the way they've talked about it. Because they've been gnawing on this Hunter Biden bone for many years now. And now they're being told that Hunter Biden is going to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and have a diversion agreement on the purchase of a weapon. Right. And being told that by a Republican-appointed U.S. attorney, no less. So the fix must have been it. In Republicans' minds. Right. So how are they approaching this case now that,

you know, in the minds of the Justice Department, it's kind of over? in the minds of the Justice Department, it's kind of over. So Republicans had wrestled back control of the House earlier this year. That has allowed them investigative power and the ability to promote what they want to promote and raise what they want to raise. If you need any of those, that building will come to order. Want to welcome everyone here today. In the course of that, they've focused themselves back on Hunter Biden.

Today we have two brave, incredible IRS whistleblowers who have risked their careers to come forward and provide important testimony. And they've done that with the help of IRS investigators who were originally working on this case. IRS investigators who got drawn into it because of the allegations that Hunter Biden didn't pay his taxes. Correct. My name is Gary Shapley. I worked as a special agent for IRS criminal investigation for 14 years. agent for IRS criminal investigation for 14 years. Based on my experience, I'm here to tell you that the Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office and Department of Justice handling the Hunter Biden tax investigation was very different from any other case in my 14 years at the IRS. Two IRS investigators,

supported by House Republicans, have come forward claiming they are whistleblowers and that there was political interference. So they've opened up a whole new chapter in the Hunter Biden saga by accusing the Justice Department under both Attorney General Barr when Trump was president and Attorney General Merrick Garland when Biden came in of treating Hunter Biden differently because he was the son of a former vice president and a president. In April 2022, in a hearing, Attorney General Garland was asked how the American people could be confident the administration was conducting a serious investigation into the president's own son. Attorney General Garland responded by saying, because we put the investigation in the hands of a Trump appointee. He led Congress to

believe the case was insulated from improper political influence because all decisions were being made exclusively by Delaware United States Attorney David Weiss, but that was not true. Their most salacious allegation is that Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, did not really have the full authority to bring whatever charges he wanted. I watched United States Attorney Weiss tell a roomful of senior FBI and IRS senior leaders on October 7, 2022, that he was not the deciding person on whether charges were filed. That was my red line. Their charges were filed. That was my red line.

That the notion that when Attorney General Garland said Weiss has the ability to do what he wants with this investigation, that that wasn't true. If there's no further business without objection, the committee stands adjourned. But it doesn't appear like that's the case. Weiss, in letters to Congress, has said that he did have full authority to do what he wanted to do with this investigation and that there's nothing to the allegations. So this has become a bit of a he said, he said between the whistleblowers and Weiss. Yes, but with the Republicans holding up the whistleblowers as the truth-tellers and as evidence that the fix was in. So what should we make of what this has become

since Weiss more or less ended his investigation with a plea deal that we're about to see in court today and the congressional Republicans picked it up and said, no, no, no, we're going to get to the bottom of this. And I've started to kind of fling around whistleblower testimony. How should we think about that? I'm not sure. I think the one thing that I've learned is that every time that you think the Hunter story is over, Every time that you think the Hunter story is over, there's something else. So in this case, you had a years-long investigation, looked at all the stuff in Hunter Biden's life, right?

And last month, it was announced that he was going to plead guilty and that there was a resolution to all of this. And then the whistleblower stuff came out. And now that has taken on a life of its own. So while it looks like when Hunter Biden walks into court today, it's the end. As someone that has followed this, whether you're going all the way back to Trump trying to get the Ukrainians to investigate Hunter Biden or a guilty plea in Delaware today, it just seems to keep on going. So we may very well end up in a year or so in a situation where there's a rerun of four years ago's presidential debates. Joe Biden's on stage with Donald Trump,

and Donald Trump is accusing Joe Biden of being involved in some sort of criminality with Hunter Biden, even though the Justice Department has looked at all those claims and decided there's nothing to prosecute. Without taking many leaps or liberties, it's pretty clear that the Hunter Biden story

is going to be something that Republicans and Trump are not going to be able to resist seizing on. Because remember, Donald Trump has been indicted by the Biden Justice Department on a slew of felony charges that have exposed him to many years in prison. So, is it that far-fetched to think that Donald Trump will be back on that debate stage with Joe Biden saying, your Justice Department laid on the brakes for your son at the same time that it charged me?

Hmm. And so the Hunter Biden story will keep going and going. Well, Mike, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. On Tuesday, in a last-minute maneuver, congressional Republicans and conservative activists sought to intervene in Hunter Biden's plea deal, filing legal briefs that urged the judge in the case

to throw out the agreement that Hunter Biden reached with prosecutors. The Times reports that the maneuver is unlikely to succeed, but highlights the extraordinary lengths that Republicans will go to keep the Hunter Biden story in the national spotlight. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, a federal judge struck down the Biden administration's latest plan to reduce illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, a plan that the Biden administration says has been working.

The plan, put in place in May, punished migrants who crossed the border illegally and rewarded those who scheduled appointments to seek asylum. As a result, border crossings fell sharply over the past few months. But the judge said that the policy violated federal law, which says that foreigners who reach U.S. soil are entitled to request asylum no matter how they entered the country. asylum, no matter how they entered the country. And the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into Harvard University's policy of giving preference to the relatives of alumni and donors when admitting students. The investigation appears to stem from a complaint filed by activists who argue that the Harvard policy, known as legacy admissions, illegally discriminates against Black, Hispanic, and Asian applicants in favor of wealthy students

who were less qualified. Today's episode was produced by Ricky Nowetzki and Stella Tan, with help from Michael Simon-Johnson, Sydney Harper, and Mary Wilson. It was edited by Rachel Quester, with help from Michael Benoit and John Ketchum. Contains original music by Marian Lozano,

Dan Powell, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Mavaro. See you tomorrow.