All the crimes that Hunter’s ridiculous plea deal missed
“Hunter is resolved.”
Those words yesterday from Hunter Biden’s counsel, Chris Clark, were confident and certain. He declared the “five-year investigation” effectively closed even as the Justice Department insisted the investigation is “ongoing.”
If none of this seems to make sense, it is because it doesn’t.
For years, the political and media elite have struggled to “resolve” the disaster that is Hunter. They have finally done so with a long-predicted “controlled demolition” of the scandal by having the president’s son plead guilty to a couple of minor tax violations without a serious threat of jail time.
They even threw in a phantom felony allegation that will evaporate once Hunter completes a diversion program.
The diversion program is particularly insulting to the intelligence of the American people. Hunter is reportedly no longer an addict, having attended treatment and taken up painting. Yet he will be treated like he is a junkie picked up in a drug sweep, and everyone will pretend that this is about addiction rather than corruption.
The Justice Department continues to refuse to confirm what it means by an “ongoing investigation,” but it had often used this claim to refuse to share material with Congress.
There is reason to be suspicious. First, no one can explain why it took five years for the investigation of two minor tax counts and a gun allegation that could have been confirmed in a month.
Indeed, an IRS whistleblower alleged that Hunter was given preferential treatment and that the whistleblower’s team was removed from further work on the case by the Justice Department.
Hunter also never faced any charges after videotaping himself engaged in interstate violations involving a host of prostitutes and drugs. That is now simply material for his scrapbook.
There is a glaring omission of any charge under the Foreign Agents Registration Act despite the Justice Department using this charge freely against associates of former President Donald Trump like Paul Manafort.
However, again, it would not take five years to establish this crime (which was done in little time with Manafort). Hunter seems to have been simply given a pass on what was likely the greatest concern for the White House.
The most notable omission is the failure of any apparent investigation into the expanding scandal surrounding the influence-peddling operation of the Biden family.
Despite the release of evidence by the House Oversight Committee showing potentially millions of transfers to Biden family members from foreign sources, Attorney General Merrick Garland has blocked any appointment of a special counsel.
This refusal has continued even with references to President Biden as “the big guy” who was supposed to receive a percentage of the deals and the recent disclosure of bribery allegations by a trusted FBI source.
Notably, in his interview, Clark not only declared “the five-year investigation into Hunter … resolved,” he confirmed that he had no recollection of ever being asked about his client’s abandoned laptop by the investigators in Delaware.
If true, the Justice Department succeeded in spending more than five years investigating Hunter while avoiding the two most significant allegations: influence peddling and working as an illegal foreign agent.
It is akin to driving in a bumper car and avoiding any contact at all with another car … for over five years. It takes real skill.
It was clearly a good day for Hunter and the Bidens. At the same time that he was given a pass by the Justice Department, Hunter cut a deal to reduce his child support for his daughter Navy while getting her mother to drop her request for the girl to actually be called a Biden.
It is not clear what is a greater relief for the Biden family: that Hunter will not be known as a felon or Navy will not be known as a Biden.
What is particularly chilling is that the establishment in Washington is not even trying to rebut the widespread view of a two-tiered system of justice. Garland has failed in his pledge to restore trust in the Justice Department, which is now lower than it was under his predecessor, Bill Barr.
The media is again burying stories on the evidence of millions in payments to the Bidens.
In Congress, Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), who has opposed efforts to investigate Biden influence peddling, even praised Hunter for his courage. Goldman said that Hunter “should be commended for taking accountability and accepting responsibility.”
That’s right, Hunter is actually commendable for, after over five years, pleading to two misdemeanors with no likely jail time. For a Biden, that apparently is the very profile of courage.
It simply does not matter that the public now views both the Justice Department and the media as politically compromised. The important thing is President Biden has again declared that he is “proud of my son.”
He should be. No one but a Biden could have avoided any meaningful consequences for the litany of corrupt and criminal allegations against Hunter. It takes a true Biden to do that. Not a Navy, of course. She is not a true Biden.
After all, the 4-year-old just got her clock cleaned in court. No Biden worth the name would ever let that happen.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
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