The NPR Politics Podcast - Hunter Biden Probe Continues After Tax And Gun Charges, DOJ Says

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Hunter Biden, the president's son, has been charged with federal offenses related to his taxes and business dealings, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.The younger Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor offenses related to his filing of federal income taxes. Federal authorities also charged him with a felony firearm offense, for which he agreed to enter a pretrial diversion agreement that allows him to avoid prosecution.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Claire. And this is Mary from Anchorage, Alaska. And we have just walked the stage and officially graduated from high school. This podcast was recorded at 1242 p.m. on Tuesday, June 20th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll still be celebrating our freedom and beginning a new chapter in our lives. Here's the show!

Oh, congratulations. That's such an optimistic and fun time of life. Absolutely. Good for them. I hope you have a summer break coming. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Keri Johnson, national justice correspondent. And President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, has reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. It's the result of a five-year-long investigation run by David Weiss, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney based in the president's home state of Delaware.

So, Carrie, what are the terms of this plea deal? We don't have the plea agreement yet, but we do have a couple of letters filed with the court in Delaware this morning. And they suggest that Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges for failing to pay income taxes in 2017 and 2018. And that separately, he's agreed to enter a diversion program on a third charge. This would be a weapons related charge for unlawfully possessing a firearm during a period when he was addicted to drugs. And so under the terms of that diversion program, if Hunter Biden stays clean, undergoes drug tests, reports to probation regularly, after a couple of years, that charge will be wiped off his record. But if he doesn't follow

the rules, the DOJ can use his admission against him in court at a later date. And as for, you know, whether Hunter Biden is going to actually face jail time, it's not clear at this moment. Some sources are telling me that DOJ may have agreed to probation on the tax charges, which would be important, but ultimately it's going to be up to a judge. What other kind of penalties could he be looking at if there's jail time as one potential thing, is there fines or is essentially the plea to say you're guilty part of it? You know, there are monetary fines on both of the tax counts. But it's important to remember that Hunter Biden said as of a couple of years ago, he paid off his tax debts. So those payments

have already been made and he's not on the hook for those financially anymore. Domenico, Kerry made reference to this, but these crimes, particularly the gun-related crime, was committed in what has become a very well-known period of addiction and drug abuse in Hunter Biden's life. Yeah, I mean, Hunter Biden has been pretty troubled with drug addiction for a long time. This became a part of the 2020 campaign where, you know, former President Trump tried to use it against President Biden. And President Biden, you know, arguably had one of his best moments of the campaign and the debates where, you know, he said that a lot of people struggle with addiction, a lot of families have had to deal with this, and that he loves his son, and that he's glad that he's gotten to a better place. You know, Hunter Biden wrote a book about all of this and had some

pretty dark scenes that kind of went, you of went close proximity to the timeline of his brother Beau's death and the spiral that he went into several times. And he was in and out of those kinds of facilities and continued to go back to things like crack cocaine. So yeah, a lot of different problems. And the Biden family certainly hopes that he's on to a more positive place. Not just the Biden family. Hunter Biden's lawyer, Chris Clark, issued a written statement this morning to saying that he knows Hunter believes it's important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction, and that he looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward. Kerry, can we back up to the man who led this investigation, David Weiss? He was appointed by Trump, but President Biden made the decision to keep him in place.

Is that unusual? That's really unusual, Sue. And President Biden said he did that to try to insulate this investigation from any hint of politics whatsoever. This investigation we know has been going on for five years now. And David Weiss was empowered by the Attorney General Merrick Garland to run this probe as he saw fit. Weiss issued one statement today describing the terms of the plea deal and saying the investigation is ongoing, which is very interesting because Hunter Biden's lawyers said they thought they believed the whole matter had been resolved. unusual is that the line prosecutors on this case, the assistant U.S. attorneys, are two assistant U.S. attorneys from Baltimore who've handled very sensitive public corruption cases in the past, including ones involving the Baltimore Police Department. How do you interpret that? I'm a little confused by Hunter Biden's lawyer saying we see this as case closed and the U.S. Attorney's

Office saying it's still ongoing. Is that potentially because it hasn't actually gone before a judge yet? Well, you know, the judge will have to sign off on this plea deal and ultimately impose a sentence. So there is that with respect to these tax and weapon charges. But there may be other matters under investigation related to Hunter Biden that we don't know about because the Justice Department and the FBI aren't telling us. And I don't think I don't think we know enough right now to say whether there's a more fulsome investigation of financial dealings underway. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about this and the politics of this when we get back. And we're back. And Domenico, has President Biden weighed in on this plea agreement at all?

Not President Biden, but the White House has essentially issued a no comment with a slight comment that said that they love their son, support him as he continues to rebuild his life, but that they'll have no further comment than that. So how are Republicans reacting to all of this news? You know, it's fascinating because obviously Hunter Biden and the alleged wrongdoing of his foreign business dealings has been the center focus of investigations by Republicans on Capitol Hill. And it's pretty clear already that the agreement, whatever agreement he's reached with the U. the Oversight Committee, are already out with statements saying, you know, he's getting away with a slap on the wrist. Republicans still continue to allege, but without much of any evidence, that President Biden and his family were part of this broad influence peddling corruption scheme. Obviously, this agreement in this news today doesn't help bolster their accounts because there's nothing in this agreement that does speak to Hunter Biden's business dealings or certainly anything that involves the president himself. So, Domenico, I don't know what you think. I don't know if you think that these investigations are going to be able to have much of a dent in the president. I know Republicans continue to try and it's still going to be a center focus going into the presidential campaign. Well, you know, what I keep thinking about is that we have this one kind of conversation over here that's based in the facts. And then we have another kind of conversation that's going on in Republican and conservative circles,

that this is really an animating issue for them. They are convinced without evidence that this is not just about Hunter Biden, but that it's about Joe Biden, the president himself. And this goes down some pretty deep conspiracy rabbit holes, jumping to conclusions that we haven't seen any facts or evidence to back up to get to that point. But this has really been, like I said, an animating issue for a lot of Republicans. It's sort of difficult because House Republicans still want to be able to pursue what they see as an aggressive investigation into Hunter Biden and really trying to draw the link to the president even though again there hasn't been anything to suggest that the current president Joe Biden has done anything untoward even though that's the subtext of all the allegations here.

Kerry it's interesting to me because you have Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, who's facing his own legal troubles. You have all these Republicans on Capitol Hill really taking these aggressive positions towards the Justice Department, saying there's two tiers of justice in this country, that they go hard against Republicans, hard on Donald Trump and soft on Biden. But it makes me think about the attorney general, Merrick Garland, who seems to have gone through agonizing lengths as Attorney General to look as apolitical as possible with these very politically sensitive investigations. Yeah, you know, he's he said over and over again, he wants to treat like cases alike, and that no single person is above the law.

And so Garland is actually out of the country. He's in Europe meeting with the International Criminal Court and other counterparts early this week. So he's not around to answer questions about whether he approved this plea deal or any more details. But he has been very careful to say that they evaluate cases on the facts and the law. And it is worth noting that this weapons charge for which Hunter Biden is apparently going to admit responsibility, that's a very rarely prosecuted charge. And some of these tax charges as well, these two misdemeanor tax charges, those are not brought very often either. His case is kind of a strange one in terms of looking at similar treatment by other people who are not as well-known. Dominico, it's the Politics Podcast, so I have to ask the politics question.

On the one hand, it's never good to have members of your family facing criminal charges and plea agreements. Just not good for any candidate. But on the other hand, Biden seems to have used this to humanize his family, particularly because they focus so much on how much of this occurred when Hunter was going through addiction, which is also something that is very sadly relatable to many Americans. So I wonder your take on if this has much of a political impact, positive or negative or neutral for Joe Biden. You know, the thing that struck me when I saw this is that, you know, humanity is often really lost in politics.

It really is not about life fulfillment or being fair. You know, this is really, politics is really about how you can weaponize or politicize something that's happening to try to, you know, take down your opponent or expose a vulnerability and raise questions for swing voters to say, hey, you shouldn't vote for them because in this case they're a criminal family or something. But the fact is people are so dug in when it comes to this that this may be, again, an animating issue for the right. It doesn't really have or hasn't had much resonance, certainly on the left, and not really much, if any, with independents who are prone to potentially want to vote for President Biden. You know, at the same time, former President Trump is certainly

going to use this to say that there's a double standard to try to muddy the waters while he himself is dealing with a host of legal problems. All right. I think that's it for us today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.