US PRESIDENT Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanour charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes and to enter into an agreement that could avert a conviction on a gun-related charge, according to a court filing yesterday.
The news sparked accusations of favourable treatment for the Democratic president’s son from former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who for years have attacked both Bidens.
Their accusations of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden relating to Ukraine and China prompted the investigation by David Weiss – the US attorney in Delaware appointed by Trump – that led to the charges.
The two misdemeanour tax charges were Hunter Biden’s first. The younger Biden has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, consultant to foreign companies, investment banker and artist, and has publicly detailed his struggles with substance abuse.
The announcement by the Justice Department comes as President Biden is in the middle of a re-election campaign that may pit him again against Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024. As president, Trump asked Chinese and Ukrainian authorities to investigate Hunter Biden’s activities in their countries.
According to court filings, Hunter Biden received taxable income of more than $1.5 million in 2017 and in 2018 but did not pay income tax those years despite owing in excess of $100,000. He is also charged with unlawfully owning a firearm from roughly October 12 to 23, 2018 when he was using and addicted to a controlled substance, the Justice Department said.
For that charge, he entered a pretrial diversion agreement, an alternative to prosecution that is sometimes used to allow defendants to avoid prison time or a criminal conviction. Hunter Biden is likely to face a sentencing range of 12-18 months for the tax charges, about half of which could be spent inside a prison cell, according to sentencing expert Tess Lopez.
But the odds he will get sentenced to prison are low. Republicans roundly criticised the deal as being favourable to the president’s son. “Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform
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