Today, Explained - Hunter becomes the hunted

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Hunter Biden is set to be indicted this month. The WSJ’s Aruna Viswanatha goes over the evidence with us, and Politico’s Jonathan Lemire looks at what it all means for President Biden’s reelection bid. This show was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact checked by Serena Solin, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Justice Department is going to charge Hunter Biden later this month, although we're not entirely sure with what at this point. There will be a charge related to Biden's 2018 purchase of a pistol. He lied on a federal forum and said he wasn't using drugs when he bought it. Biden, of course, is in recovery for a crack addiction. The hardest part is telling yourself what becomes the ultimate lie, that this is the last time, this is the final hit, we're going to get better, and we're going to go to seek help. There are also likely to be charges that Hunter Biden didn't pay taxes for several years. He pled guilty to both of those things, expecting to enter into a plea deal that later fell through.

Coming up on today explained what the indictments might mean for the president's son and also for the president. Mr. President, are you worried about your son being indicted, Mr. President? The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs? And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals.

Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. This is Today Explained. Hi, my name is Aruna Vishwanatha. I'm a reporter with the Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau. I cover the Justice Department, law enforcement, the FBI, and for the past few years have been specifically covering a lot of politically sensitive investigations, including the investigation into Hunter Biden. Hunter becomes the hunted. Part one, his laptop. This all really starts, at least for the public, when in the heat of the 2020 campaign,

all of a sudden there's this laptop. This is where the computer repair shop was located in a strip mall in Wilmington, Delaware. Hunter Biden is said to have brought his water damage laptop to the shop in April 2019 with the hope of restoring the information. McIsaac was successful and, oh boy, what he saw on that laptop was sad and shocking. It seems to have all sorts of personal information on it, very personal photos of him doing drugs and being intimate with women, and a lot of his text messages about his business dealings.

Hunter Biden used to be on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma. And John Paul MacIsaac claims the laptop contained evidence that Hunter Biden used his connection with his father to help in this role. And there were questions at the time about whether this laptop was really his. And, you know, most of us would not, you know, forget that we left a laptop

at a repair store. Most of us, especially if there was, like, sensitive personal stuff on it, I think we would want to go pick it up. But that kind of contributed to all this confusion around what this really was. It turns out it was actually his laptop. These were his most intimate details sort of splashed for the world to see. Joe Biden wins the election. And then a few weeks after that, all of a sudden, Hunter Biden discloses to the world that he is under investigation and that he has just gotten a subpoena. Hunter Biden said in a statement released by the Biden transition team, quote, I take this matter very seriously, but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with

the benefit of professional tax advisors. Part two, the investigation. The investigation actually started back in 2018, and it had been kind of moving at a slow burn for a few years at that point. And it was in 2020 that it broke into the open. And what we've known for a while is that this investigation is into what Hunter Biden was doing both when his father was vice president up until 2016 and then what he was doing for a few years after that. And it has a lot to do with whether he paid his taxes. It sort of touches on a lot of these foreign business dealings he had. He sat on the board of this Ukrainian energy company when his father was vice president. He was getting payments for this. He doesn't really

have a background in the energy industry in the region. Looking back, did you make a mistake taking a spot on that board? No, I don't think I made a mistake in taking a spot on the region. Looking back, did you make a mistake taking a spot on that board? No, I don't think I made a mistake in taking a spot on the board. I think I made a mistake in terms of underestimating the way in which it would be used against me. But you must have seen the optics. Even back then, you must have...

I mean, how could you not have foreseen that this was going to look bad? Because I really didn't. It all seemed a little questionable. And so at that point, we find out prosecutors are investigating this wide range of activity that Hunter Biden had been involved in. And the guy that is running that investigation is the U.S. attorney in Delaware who was appointed by Trump. He's a longtime prosecutor in that office. He has a pretty nonpartisan reputation.

He wasn't sort of a politician before this. But he's also known as being quite slow. Joe Biden is elected president. He takes office. He appoints Merrick Garland as his attorney general. And one of the first things that Merrick Garland does as attorney general is say that he's going to keep David Weiss on to continue this investigation into Hunter Biden in order to sort of make sure that the public can have faith that the administration's political appointees are not interfering in this investigation and that the decision that ends up getting made is one that the public can trust. So over the next few years, this investigation continues at a steady pace every few months. But David Weiss's office is very quiet. They don't really say anything about what they're doing. And that's sort of going on in the background.

Part three, Hunter's private troubles go public. So even as the investigation itself goes somewhat quiet and we don't really have a great window into what's going on there, there's all these other avenues for information about Hunter Biden's kind of messy personal and business life to start coming out. CBS News has obtained a letter from House Republicans demanding, yes, providing another window into the really messy personal life of Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden is demanding a judge deny his four-year-old daughter from taking his last name. It comes out that, you know, at his low point in 2018, when he's doing a lot of drugs and sleeping with a lot of women, he ends up sleeping with this woman and having a baby with her.

Why? She's the love child with a former stripper named London Roberts who Hunter denied knowing until a paternity test proved the little girl was his. And then once that's sort of settled and he starts paying child support, he brings it back onto the public's radar by filing his own case asking to reduce the child support payments because of his financial condition. He can't afford what he had previously been obligated to pay. The hearing today lasted

just over an hour. Afterwards, Hunter left by a back entrance and was quickly whisked away in a five-car motorcade. So all of this kind of keeps his very messy life, you know, still in the public view as this investigation is unfolding. Part four, the whistleblowers. Investigators were not allowed to follow up on WhatsApp messages from Hunter Biden's Apple iCloud backup, where he suggested he was sitting next to his father. Assistant United States Attorney... A lot of this ends up coming to a head earlier this year, starting around April, when several

agents who had worked on this criminal investigation into Hunter Biden at the IRS start coming forward and going to Congress and then ultimately testifying about what they view as improper interference in the investigation. 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. And complaints about not being able to take investigative steps that they would have taken in any other normal case. Prosecutors instructed investigators not to ask about the big guy or dad when conducting interviews. A lot of their complaints actually predate Joe Biden coming into office.

And so a lot of it is even unfolding over the course of 2020 and how the investigation happened at that point. But then even after Joe Biden comes in and David Weiss is continuing to manage this investigation, these agents that had formerly worked on this investigation are saying he was succumbing to political pressure and not able to take the steps that they thought were appropriate. And so that adds a very potent dynamic, just as David Weiss's team and Hunter Biden's team think they're reaching a deal. Part five, a done deal falls apart. They think they've wrapped it up by July, even with the whistleblowers coming forward. They seem to have reached this agreement where Hunter Biden will plead guilty to these two misdemeanor tax offenses.

Prosecutors are expected to recommend a sentence of probation instead of the maximum penalties for these charges, which include a year in jail for each tax offense and up to 10 years in jail for the felony gun charge that alleges that Biden was in possession of a firearm despite being a drug user. And everyone thinks this is going to be in the rearview mirror after this, what they think is going to be a brief court hearing in Delaware, where the judge asks some questions, signs off on it, and they're on their merry way. That is, you know, not what happened. Now, we do have some breaking news we just want to bring you related to President Biden's son. Early on that day, it became clear that that was not what was going to happen after the judge

starts asking questions about the scope of the deal and what exactly it covers and what else is out there. Within a few minutes of her questions, it became very clear that what Hunter's team thought the deals covered and what the government thought the deals covered was pretty far apart. Our understanding now is that that plea deal with the DOJ has fallen apart in court. The deal unravels and things only get more heated between the government and Hunter Biden since then. And U.S. Attorney David Weiss thinks like they're not going to go any further. They're willing to enter the deal they agreed to, but they're not willing to say they've wrapped everything up because they want to continue their investigation. Hunter Biden says, no way, I'm not agreeing to

that. And David Weiss thinks, OK, we're going to have to move ahead and charge. And in order to do that, he goes to Attorney General Merrick Garland and says, hey, I think I need to be a special counsel in order to continue to pursue this case. Merrick Garland gives him that status. The appointment of Mr. Weiss reinforces for the American people the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. So we're in this very bizarre situation where two months ago, Hunter Biden thinks he's basically putting this all behind him. It's not going to be an issue

for his father's reelection campaign. He's basically done. He's not going to jail. He's going to get probation. And then all that within a matter of weeks totally blows up. And the U.S. attorney that also was expected to be stepping down soon after

finishing this case is instead now a special counsel and has said that he's going to indict Hunter Biden, in particular on the gun charge and presumably also on these tax charges. Part six, What happens next? That, I think, is going to closely track what they have already filed in the agreement that he had expected to sign. So those agreements included what's known as a statement of facts, where it outlined what the government believed it could prove and what Hunter felt he could admit to. And so we would expect what we expect to be an indictment very soon to kind of track what they've already disclosed in terms of laying out how Hunter bought this gun,

sort of misled the government when he tried to register it. And if they file the tax charges as well this month, we expect that to lay out many of the same details that they did this summer, which involve how he brought in all of this income, including a lot of foreign income, and didn't end up reporting it to the IRS and didn't appropriately pay the taxes he owed on it at the time. That was Aruna Vishwanatha of The Wall Street Journal. Coming up, Hunter Biden's messy personal life, his guns, his taxes, his drugs. These are all very American problems. But of course, Hunter is the president's son.

So what does all this mean for President Dad Biden and his reelection chances next November? Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family. And Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an Aura frame for himself. So setup was super simple. In my case, we were celebrating my grandmother's birthday,

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Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. By the way, where's Hunter? Where is Hunter? Remember? Where's Hunter? It's Today Explained. We're here with Jonathan Lemire. He's the White House Bureau Chief for Politico, and he's host of the show Way Too Early on MSNBC. Jonathan, how is the Biden camp responding to all of this? In many ways, they downplay it. They say that this is something that has been out in the open

for some years, that Hunter Biden speaks very candidly about his problems with addiction. He has owned up to some of the mistakes he has made, in fact, paid back the taxes he owed. And it should be noted that the charges here are exactly that. It's the on taxes and then this gun charge, which is what the communications professionals, to sort of respond to Republican investigations for the administration and particularly those connected to Hunter Biden. The Republicans, of course, suggested Hunter Biden's business dealings were also illegal and involve his father, the now president. We're in communication with four former Biden family business associates, if you want to call it that. They're cooperating with our investigation. And I will tell you, it's very concerning.

Though they have yet to provide evidence of either of those things, and nor has there been a criminal charge connected to either of those things. So the White House is ready, but they feel like this is something that most voters don't care about. Why do they feel it's something that most voters don't care about? They feel like the mention of this was known before the 2020 election, and therefore has already been litigated in the public eye. They also feel that the Republicans are playing a game of whataboutism and pointing to Hunter Biden and legal woes and trying to connect them to his father as a means to distract and downplay these issues surrounding Donald Trump, who, of course, has currently been indicted

four times for different crimes. And they also point out that, unlike Trump, Hunter Biden's name does not appear on any ballot, that he's not someone who is seeking office or works in the White House. And they point to polling that shows that most Americans have said that they don't feel like the Republicans are using their time wisely going after these investigations. A counter, though, would be a poll just this week that did suggest that a majority of Americans do have a sense that President Biden had at least some sort of knowledge or involvement with his son's business deals. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the Republicans might open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. If the Biden administration continues to fight to withhold information that could really clear all this up, did they take bribes? Did they

deal in the business? If they hold that up, we would have to move to an impeachment inquiry. How serious is that and how would that work? It is becoming more and more serious. McCarthy has sort of vacillated as to whether he wants to do this or not. He had floated a few months ago before the summer recess that he might. Then he seemed to back off it, even telling members of his conference, we don't have the evidence yet to go forward with this. But he's under a lot of pressure to take the step.

Former President Trump, of course, running now for another term, has been squeezing him to do so. Another email referenced 10 percent held by Hunter for the big guy. I wonder who the big guy was. The big guy. He doesn't look so big to me. Far-right members of his caucus have also suggested that they want to see Biden impeached. They've been saying that for a long time. Yeah, Sarah, I want to read the actual tweet from Matt Gates that has caused this stir in the House. He wrote, quote, we've got to seize the initiative. That means forcing votes on impeachment. If Speaker McCarthy stands in her way, he may not have the job long. And there is a sense from the White House that McCarthy may go through with it. It's not clear that he has the votes. It's certainly not clear

that it will ever land on an actual impeachment. But at least the inquiry may go forward in an effort by McCarthy to placate those on the far right who are unhappy with him about the debt limit deal he struck earlier this year, who are already unhappy about the spending votes they're going to have to take later this month. And this is McCarthy trying to throw them a bone and saying, look, I need you to do this for me, but I'll do this for you. Quid pro quo, a thing we all love in Washington. What is Joe Biden's overall strategy? He and his team, what is their overall strategy to deal with any potential fallout? Do they have sort of one method of we're going to ignore it, or we're going to attack it head on, or we're going to get Hunter out there and make clear

that he's a good guy and a good dad? What's the arc here? What's the story they want to tell? It's sort of been a hybrid approach. To start, they largely ignored it. They believed that the best thing for the president to do was keep being president. But of course, there is the personal toll this weighs on Joe Biden. Hunter Biden, of course, his lone surviving son. Beau Biden was only 46 years old when he died. A two-time Delaware attorney general considered a rising star with a potentially bright future in national politics. Those close to the president say he worries about his son deeply and speaks to him on a nearly

daily basis. As I mentioned, they assembled this war room to push back against Republican efforts. They're being more aggressive there. They've gone on the attack more in the public relations sphere, whether in email statements or on Twitter, pushing back against GOP claims, highlighting moments that they feel show that GOP hypocrisy with impeachment. But they know this is going to be an issue. And look, no White House wants to go down the road of an impeachment inquiry. They are lengthy. They are time-consuming. They can sometimes lead to unexpected places. They generate bad headlines. At the end of it, they feel that they'll win the public relations argument, that this will backfire on Republicans. They point to how Bill Clinton's approval ratings went up after he was impeached.

They also note that when Donald Trump was impeached the first time, his ratings even went up a little bit. So they feel like that the American people next year at the ballot box will punish the Republicans if this is seen as an unserious impeachment inquiry. What is the Biden team saying about the possibility of a public trial? I imagine that could get very embarrassing for all involved. Is there like a plan to prevent it if they can? I mean, certainly they don't want one. Hunter Biden's attorneys still are insisting that the plea deal stand, that it still be valid, that it can still be maybe tweaked and negotiated, but that he is indeed willing to plead guilty as he was a few weeks ago when he was in court. So they believe that could still be operable and that would prevent a trial. If it were to go

to trial, though, yes, of course, it would be potentially public. It could potentially be embarrassing. And there is a sense around Hunter Biden that though he has not been at all charged with a crime in terms of his business or trying to profit off his father's name, but some of this conduct is unseemly by Hunter Biden's own admission in terms of his years battling addictions. You smoke and crack around the clock. Drinking a quart of vodka a day by yourself in a room is absolutely, completely debilitating. If some of that were to become revived in the public eye, of course, it would be deeply embarrassing. Yeah, you know, you talked about Bill Clinton. You talked about Donald Trump after they were impeached.

There's something else I've been thinking about. The United States is a country in the middle of an opioid epidemic. We're a country where lots of people have guns and maybe shouldn't have them. Hunter Biden could be anybody's messy younger brother or anybody's messy cousin. Is there a chance that instead of hurting Joe Biden with voters, this humanizes him? Because it's something that people can kind of relate to. Oh, your kid's a mess. I think it's a good point, and there's a good chance.

In fact, White House aides have said that all along, that they feel like they know that so much of this country does struggle with addiction, particularly opioids, that they feel like this humanizes the Biden family and also potentially even makes Biden appear very sympathetic. A year or so ago, there was a leaked voicemail from President Biden, he wasn't president at the time, but to his son Hunter, in which he's expressing real concern and worry. It's dad. I called him, told him I love you. I love you more than the whole world, pal. Can I get some help?

I don't know what to do. I know you don't either. I'm here, no matter what you need. No matter what you need, I love you. And in the moment it was released, it was deemed almost a gotcha in the far right media. And very quickly, it was realized that no, this actually made Joe Biden look very human and like a loving father. So they do believe that that is a possibility here as well, that Americans will look at this situation with Hunter and see a little bit of themselves in it.

That was Politico's Jonathan Lemire. Today's episode was produced by Miles Bryan and edited by Miranda Kennedy. It was fact-checked by Serena Solon and engineered by Patrick Boyd. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. you