Federal agents see chargeable tax, gun-purchase case against Hunter BidenSo an indictment is imminent? Not according to Ken White, the lawyer and commentator also known as Popehat:
Federal agents investigating President Biden’s son Hunter have gathered what they believe is sufficient evidence to charge him with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun purchase, according to people familiar with the case. The next step is for the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, a Trump administration holdover, to decide on whether to file such charges, these people said.
... Given the intense political interest in a criminal probe involving the son of a sitting president, Attorney General Merrick Garland has made clear that the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, David C. Weiss, who was nominated by Trump in late 2017, is supervising the case.
... Republicans have pressed the Biden administration to appoint a special counsel to take over the investigation into the president’s son... Garland chose not to make such an appointment, instead keeping the case with Weiss....
The primary focus of the tax investigation has been whether Hunter Biden did not declare income related to his various business ventures, including overseas. The gun paperwork part of the investigation stems from 2018, a time period in which Hunter Biden, by his own account, was smoking crack cocaine.
In October of that year, Biden purchased a handgun, filling out a federal form in which he allegedly answered “no” to the question whether he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
/2 God Bless federal agents but “federal agents think they have enough to charge” is on a spectrum not too far form “LAPD officer thinks he was totally right to shoot that guy” — non an unimpeachable opinion.
— IfHatHadHappened (@Popehat) October 6, 2022
/3 Next, remember that FBI leaks have a long, ugly history of being used as political and personal weapons. In fact it’s been really remarkable how few leaks there have been in the investigations of Trump. Leaking this now is very plausibly a deliberate strategic act.
— IfHatHadHappened (@Popehat) October 6, 2022
I think we can safely assume that this is a leak on behalf of Republicans, and that it's intended to be an October surprise.
If so, it's a terrible one.
If you live in the right-wing bubble, the fact that Hunter Biden is still a free man is a world-historical miscarriage of justice. It's as if Hitler really escaped at the end of the war and was living the sweet life in Argentina. No, if you're in the right-wing bubble, it's worse. To the right, Hunter Biden is one of the most notorious criminals in human history.
Everyone else in America, I'm convinced, just shrugs. I don't believe any non-Republican voter hears about Hunter Biden's misdeeds and thinks, That's why I can't vote for a Democrat -- including for Joe Biden. Many presidents have black-sheep relatives. Billy Carter. Roger Clinton. Neil Bush. (Our previous president didn't have a black-sheep relative because he is the black sheep in his family.)
I guess I know what will happen next. Republicans will stamp their collective foot and demand that the totally corrupt Justice Department indict Hunter right away. That will be highly motivating to ... um, people who were 100% certain to vote for Republicans in the midterms anyway. No one else will care.
I actually hope Republicans try to make the midterms about Hunter Biden, because swing voters are no more likely to believe that his story is relevant to their lives than (alas) they are to to believe that January 6 is relevant to their lives. We know from polling that Democrats' focus on the insurrection and attempted election theft hasn't motivated very many voters who weren't already upset about it. Now Republicans can rant about something that's even less relevant to ordinary people's lives -- and watch it have no impact on the midterm results.
No comments:
Post a Comment