In a bargain with the Justice Department, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter would admit guilt to federal tax offences but escape prosecution on a related weapons charge, presumably sparing him time in jail.

In accordance with a deal made public on Tuesday, Hunter Biden, 53, will enter a guilty plea for the misdemeanour tax offences. As long as he follows the guidelines established by prosecutors, the agreement will also prevent prosecution on a felony charge of illegally carrying a firearm while using drugs. The resolution of a federal criminal case concurrently with the filing of charges is uncommon but not unheard of.

The agreement puts an end to a protracted Justice Department inquiry into Biden’s second son, who has acknowledged having drug issues in the wake of his brother Beau Biden’s death in 2015. Additionally, it prevents a trial from happening, which would have resulted in days or weeks’ worth of uninteresting headlines for a White House that has steadfastly tried to distance itself from the Justice Department.

The bargain is specifically focused on tax and firearms crimes rather than anything more general or connected to the Democratic president, even if it compels the younger Biden to confess guilt. Though unsuccessful, former president Donald Trump and other Republicans persisted in attempting to use the case to cast a negative light on Joe Biden and cast doubt on the impartiality of the Biden Justice Department.

In his presidential run-off challenge to President Biden in 2024, Trump compared the accord to a “mere traffic ticket,” adding, “Our system is BROKEN!”

If you are the president’s son, you get a preferential deal, according to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who also contrasted the conclusion to the Trump documents case that is currently pending in federal court. The identical phrase was used by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, another candidate for president.

In a straightforward statement, the White House Counsel’s office stated that the president and first lady Jill Biden “love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life.”

According to two persons with knowledge of the case, the Justice Department will recommend probation for the tax charges against Hunter Biden, which means he won’t have to serve any jail time. But the judge has the last say on whether to accept any agreement. The individuals talked to The Associated Press under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly by name.

He must enter a guilty plea to charges of failing to pay more than $100,000 in taxes on more than $1.5 million in income in both 2017 and 2018, which have a potential prison sentence of one year. Afterwards, the back taxes were paid, according to a person familiar with the inquiry.

According to the firearms accusation, Hunter Biden had a Colt Cobra.38 Special handgun in his possession for 11 days in October 2018 while being aware that he used drugs. The Justice Department reported that Hunter Biden had reached a pretrial agreement, despite the fact that the count carries a potential 10-year prison sentence. This most likely indicates that the case will be erased from his record provided he complies with the terms of the agreement.

Hunter Biden’s attorney Christopher Clark stated in a statement that he believed the five-year probe was finally over.

Clark stated, “I know Hunter believes it is crucial to own up to these errors he committed during a time of struggle and addiction in his life. “He looks forward to advancing and continuing his recovery.”

The accord comes as the Justice Department prosecutes Trump, the first former president to be charged with a federal crime, in what may be the most significant case in its history. Hunter Biden’s case was settled just days after former President Trump was indicted on 37 counts for allegedly mishandling secret information at his Florida residence, a case with much more important political ramifications.

An assault of Republican criticism of the “politicisation” of the Justice Department has followed that charge. Republicans in Congress are still looking into practically every aspect of Hunter Biden’s business transactions, including foreign payments, in the meantime.

The younger Biden is “getting away with a slap on the wrist,” according to Rep. James Comer, the Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, despite congressional investigations that GOP lawmakers claim reveal — but have not yet proven — a pattern of corruption involving the family’s financial ties.

On the other hand, U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Delaware prosecutor judge appointed by Trump, claimed the matter was thoroughly probed over five years, according to Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware.

The case’s resolution, according to Coons, “brings to a close a five-year investigation, despite the elaborate conspiracy theories spun by many who believed there would be much more to this.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who was slated to campaign alongside the president Tuesday night, reiterated his support for Biden’s reelection.

“Hunter changes nothing,” Newsom stated to The AP on Tuesday.

In order to eliminate any potential conflicts of interest inside the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to conduct an impartial inquiry into the allegations against President Trump.

Hunter Biden revealed that he had received a subpoena as part of the department’s examination of his taxes in December 2020, one month after the 2020 election, and that this was the beginning of the Justice Department’s probe into the president’s son. The younger Biden’s financial dealings with a variety of organisations, notably the Ukraine gas company Burisma, whose board he served on, were the subject of the subpoena.

In a statement at the time, Hunter Biden stated that he was “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 advisers.”

Since then, testimony on his taxes and international business dealings has been heard before a federal grand jury in Delaware.

As is common in a new presidential administration, the department requested the resignation of the majority of the U.S. attorneys from the Trump era in February 2021, but made a point to note that it was keeping Weiss in place to maintain continuity in the investigation.

At a congressional hearing in August of last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated that the Baltimore field office of the agency was still conducting the probe and that “I expect our folks to pursue this aggressively.”

At a subsequent hearing in March, Garland promised not to get involved in the investigation. However, a later letter to Congress from an unnamed IRS special agent in which he requested whistleblower protection claimed that the inquiry had been handled improperly.

In 2014, when his father, Barack Obama’s vice president at the time, was assisting in the administration’s foreign policy towards Ukraine, the younger Biden joined the board of Burisma. Without providing any supporting proof, Trump and his allies have long claimed that Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine influenced the Obama administration’s views towards the country in East Europe.

Years before the case was brought, Hunter Biden emerged as a key figure in the first impeachment case against Trump. Trump had reportedly asked Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a phone call to announce an investigation into the younger Biden in an apparent effort to boost his own reelection bid.

Republican candidates for president in 2020 later tried to make Hunter Biden’s business connections in Ukraine a major issue.

Hunter Biden had left a laptop at a Delaware computer repair shop 18 months prior, and it had never been picked up. The New York Post stated that it had gotten a copy of the hard drive of the laptop from Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in October of that year.

Giuliani’s participation in the laptop’s origins and the fact that senior Trump administration officials had previously issued a warning that Russia was attempting to harm Joe Biden before of the November election raised doubts about the story. There is yet no proof that the laptop or the emails discovered on the advice had any link to Russia.

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