Tuesday, June 20, 2023

A FEW MONTHS IN PRISON FOR HUNTER WOULD HAVE BETTER FOR JOE (updated)

This is good news for Hunter Biden and bad news for Joe Biden:
President Biden’s son Hunter has reached a tentative agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun charge under terms that would likely keep him out of jail, according to court papers filed Tuesday....

The court papers indicate the younger Biden has tentatively agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 and 2018. The combined tax liability is roughly $1.2 million over those years, according to people familiar with the matter.... Prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of probation for those counts, these people said. Biden’s representatives have said he previously paid back the IRS what he owed....

While Biden is pleading guilty to two tax charges, handling the gun charge as a diversion case means he will not technically be pleading guilty to that crime. Diversion is an option typically applied to nonviolent offenders with substance abuse problems.

In all, prosecutors would recommend two years of probation and diversion conditions, these people said. If Biden successfully meets the conditions of the diversion program, the gun charge would be removed from his record at the end of that period, the people familiar with the plea deal said.
It doesn't matter whether this is the kind of deal that would have been given to another person under similar circumstances -- this has the potential to motivate Republican voters the way the Dobbs decision motivates Democratic voters.

And not just Trump supporters -- even Ron DeSantis argues that the the justice system is "weaponized" against Republicans and conservatives. Even Mike Pence thinks January 6 protesters -- who wanted to kill him -- have been treated unfairly compared to the demonstrators who broke the law during anti-racism protests in 2020 (never mind the fact that there were at least 17,000 arrests in the aftermath of those protests, which didn't threaten to overthrow a duly elected government).

To right-wing rage addicts. Hunter Biden deserves jail. So do Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Fauci, and anyone who ever protested George Floyd's murder. Every Black male in Chicago should be locked up, as far as they're concerned. So should every doctor who's performed gender confirmation surgery. Instead, as they see it, people on their side were entrapped (read: caught on video) on January 6. Their people are scrutinized by the FBI for speaking out (read: threatening people) at school board meetings. Their heroes are arrested for self-defense (read: murder) on the streets of Kenosha and in the New York subway.

I now expect Trump acquittals hung juries in Florida and Georgia -- good luck trying to put together juries in these cases that won't include at least one person bent on nullification.

A few months in prison for Hunter Biden wouldn't have truly mollified these people, but their outrage might have been tempered. But this deal will confirm their most paranoid suspicions. They won't get over it quickly.

*****

UPDATE: As I was saying....

No comments: