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Are Hunter Biden's tax charges a distraction from the real issue?
If the IRS discovered that you received millions of dollars in unreported income, they’d investigate the source of that money. As you’d expect, given forensic accounting’s role in jailing drug dealers, arms smugglers, human traffickers and terrorists. And yet…
When IRS agents learned of Hunter Biden’s unreported foreign income, they were instructed not to look into the origin of the funds paying for luxury hotels, exotic sports cars, hookers, sex clubs and crack cocaine (much of which was misreported as business expenses).
Since 2018, U.S. Attorney David Weiss was – and remains – the man calling the shots. The Department of Justice (DOJ) official put the lid on tracing Hunter’s money for two simple reasons: to protect the President’s son and to protect the President.
The U.S. Attorney was well aware of the probability that Hunter Biden violated of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), requiring U.S. citizens to disclose their relationship with, activities for, and financial compensation from foreign governments attempting to influence U.S. policy.
The FARA Act Explained
The law was enacted in 1938 to counter NAZI influence. Initially, Uncle Sam wasn’t all that bothered about FARA violations. Between 1945 and 1962 – during the height of the Cold War – the Feds filed just twelve indictments.
That changed in 2016, after suspicions arose about Russian interference with the presidential election. During the Trump years, the DOJ brought FARA-related charges against..
Thomas Barrack (a member of President Trump’s transition team)
Elliott Broidy (a Trump fundraiser)
Paul J. Manafort (Trump's campaign manager)
Richard Gates (Manafort’s business partner)
Michael Flynn (Trump’s national security advisor).
All of the above faced five years in jail and a $250k fine.
The motivation, validity and fate of those charges is not the question before us. It’s whether or not the DOJ should charge Hunter Biden with a FARA violation. It certainly seems so.
Hunter received large, well-documented payments from a Russian national (who avoided U.S. sanctions), a Ukrainian gas company (subject to a corruption investigation torpedoed by then-Vice President Biden) and various companies closerthanthis with the Chinese government.
Weiss Walled Off The IRS Investigation
However tangentially, Hunter Biden involved his father in his multi-million dollar work for foreign entities closely associated with less than salubrious foreign governments.
Right from the start, Weiss walled-off the IRS investigation.
IRS agents were specifically prohibited from asking any witness any questions about Hunter’s father. Interviews with Biden family members – who received payments from Hunter’s foreign activities through a maze of U.S. shell companies – were also verboten.
An FBI informer’s accusation that Joe Biden received a $5m bribe from Ukraine was hidden from the investigators. The FBI denied agents’ requests to access to Hunter Biden’s laptop, to examine evidence of the timing, nature and scope of his unreported compensation.
Calculated Distraction?
After his plea deal with the DOJ fell apart under judicial review, Hunter Biden has been charged with three felony tax charges (evading $1.4m in taxes and filing a false return) and six misdemeanors (failure to pay taxes between 2016 and 2019).
Hunter Biden faces a maximum of 17 years in jail for these offenses. Others have been jailed for the same crime (e.g., Wesley Snipes). Aside from a felony gun charge (lying about his drug use on his ATF form), that’s it. No FARA charge.
By design? A case could be made that the tax evasion charges are a calculated distraction from more serious crimes. The most dogged reporter on the Hunter Biden story, Miranda Devine, gives ample evidence for this analysis.
As the DOJ has shown no interest in exploring Hunter Biden’s overseas ventures, Congress has launched a probe. It’s not a criminal investigation; all the politicians can do is present evidence of criminal wrongdoing to the DOJ and recommend that charges be brought.
The Chutzpah!
The federal government’s kid glove treatment of the President’s son’s illegal slush fund, detailed in his autobiography (reviewed here), is a disgrace. President Biden’s ludicrous denials of any knowledge of his son’s shady business dealings and his constant calls for “the rich to pay their fair share” are galling.
But it is this half-truth from Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell that should stick in Americans’ craw, revealing as it does the chutzpah and condescending contempt for the rule of law displayed by those involved in this sordid affair.
This is perhaps the clearest of cases of prosecutors making prosecutorial decisions for political reasons, selectively and vindictively prosecuting Mr. Biden based on his familial and political affiliation with his father, the President of the United States.