It seemed as if it might work out conveniently enough for the Biden family. A well-placed leak in The Washington Post said the FBI presented enough evidence to federal prosecutors to charge a wayward Hunter Biden, and by golly, equal justice is affirmed.
After what seems like influence peddling and potentially compromising deals with China and other foreign governments – including an email from Hunter referring to “the big guy” getting his cut – this could reasonably be worrisome for President Joe Biden.
Such an investigation could have been the crack in the door to investigate other Biden family members who made a good living from their last name for decades. Others were at least too discrete to allegedly bring hookers, drugs, videos, and laptops into the mix.
After the public saw the shenanigans, the presumption was still that Hunter would never be held accountable. He is, after all, the president’s son.
But, voila, The Washington Post’s story says that FBI leakers think there is sufficient evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes and lying on a gun purchase application.
A plea deal for these charges would likely involve a fine and perhaps a suspended sentence. But we would be told the system works. Justice is equally applied on all sides of the political spectrum.
But this week, Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made it clear that wouldn’t be so easy.
Based on information from FBI whistleblowers, Grassley demanded the FBI produce records in its possession that could indicate potential criminal activity in the Biden family’s foreign business deals. His office said it’s not at all clear the FBI formally shared this information with the office of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss.
Perhaps most importantly, the Grassley letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Weiss, says: “These documents also indicate that Joe Biden was aware of Hunter Biden’s business arrangements and may have been involved in some of them.”
The letter states, “Based on recent protected disclosures to my office, the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and James Biden.”
Grassley has never been a bomb thrower seeking a cable news primetime gig. He is a grizzled Senate veteran respected on both sides of the aisle. So, when he writes to top Justice Department officials that the president’s family members might have engaged in potential crimes, and the president seemingly knew, that carries some weight.
If Weiss did not have the information before, he does now. The letter includes more than 30-pages of documents. This reportedly included a contract designed to funnel $5 million from the Chinese government-connected firm called CEFC to Hunter and James Biden, the president’s brother, to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president. That was according to an FBI interview with Tony Bobulinski, a Biden family business partner. Documents also show the Bidens were frustrated when the payments were delayed, according to Grassley’s office.
Other FBI records obtained by Grassley reportedly have information about Biden’s business with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky. Recall, Burisma was what the 2019 Donald Trump impeachment centered around.
The FBI whistleblowers – who cannot be happy with what the bureau has become in recent years – have legal protections, but still, face risk to their careers in coming forward.
The letter continues, “These new whistleblower disclosures beg the question: in light of the allegations that I have brought to your attention, what have the FBI and Justice Department, to include U.S. Attorney Weiss, done to investigate?”
Weiss, a Trump appointee, was one of the only U.S. attorneys to survive the presidential transition in 2021, largely because it would have seemed a public relations nightmare for the president to fire the prosecutor investigating his son. Though, he sort of managed to get a prosecutor in Ukraine fired who was getting close to Hunter – but what are the chances of pulling that off twice.
Now, though, Weiss and his deputies will have to wonder if they were being played by an FBI that already has a massive credibility deficit.
