Did Biden Violate Foreign Agent Regulations, Too? – On Tuesday, June 20, the United States Attorney’s Office released a statement confirming that tax and firearm charges had been filed against Robert Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden. In the statement, Biden was described as having failed to file tax returns for taxable income in excess of $1.5 million in 2017 and 2018. The firearm charge also related to the president’s son’s decision to lie on a firearm background check form while purchasing a firearm, and claiming that he was not an unlawful user of a controlled substance.
The story garnered huge press attention – at least from some sections of the press – but has also raised questions about whether the president’s son is being handled with kid gloves. Speaking to The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat on Wednesday, June 21, the president of the Government Accountability Institute, Peter Schweizer, said that Biden had received a “sweetheart deal.”
“First of all, he was facing tax evasion charges. It’s pretty clear he did not pay his taxes. He knew he did not pay his taxes. He paid $2 million in back taxes after the grand jury was investigating his failure to pay taxes. And yet he’s being let off with misdemeanor charges on failure to pay taxes as opposed to more serious felony charges,” Schweizer said.
“Look at the gun charge. His basic defense is ‘I was on drugs when this happened.’ So they said instead of facing a felony gun charge, you’re going to go to a rehab program as a substitute. I would seriously doubt any American facing those tax charges or facing a gun charge would be able to say I was on drugs so please let me off.”
And as Hunter Biden awaits his court date, the question of whether he might also be guilty of failing to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) still lingers.
Could Biden still be guilty of representing foreign interests during his father’s time as vice president of the United States?
What is FARA?
FARA is a piece of legislation passed in 1938, designed to address concerns about the presence of Nazi German propaganda in the United States in the years leading up to the Second World War. The law requires Americans representing the interests of foreign entities or individuals to register with the United States government.
Specifically, a foreign agent is defined as an individual or an entity that engages in advocacy for lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, businesses, or organizations in the United States. Foreign agents must register with the Department of Justice, and failure to comply with the law can result in prosecution. However, prosecutions are rare as foreign agents who fail to register with the Justice Department must be proven to have “willfully” failed to comply.
Here’s what Could Have Happened
Hunter Biden’s dealings with foreign businesses in Ukraine and China are no longer a secret, and reports about his failure to register as a foreign agent have been around for years at this point. In July 2022, the New York Post cited experts who said that Hunter Biden “almost certainly broke foreign lobbying laws.”
The Post described how Hunter Biden’s famed “laptop from hell” – a laptop abandoned at a computer repair store that contained business emails, personal photos, and other formerly private information – revealed Hunter Biden’s extensive dealings with foreign officials. The laptop also showed that Joe Biden, during his time as vice president, met with his son frequently days after he met with foreign business partners. These meetings occurred on dozens of occasions, raising questions about whether Hunter Biden was engaging in an “influence peddling” scheme, whereby he lobbied on behalf of foreign businesses and made requests to his father during his time in the White House between 2009 and 2016.
George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, who has previously testified before Congress on the matter, said that while there was already a strong case for Biden having failed to register as a foreign agent, the case is stronger in the wake of “recent disclosures of additional foreign contacts.”
“The influence peddling schemes directly reference the President and [Joe Biden] is repeatedly cited as a possible recipient of funds,” Turley said.
In 2020, Republican Senator for Iowa, Chuck Grassley, questioned the Department of Justice on the Biden family’s FARA compliance – or non-compliance. In a press release, Grassley’s office called on the Justice Department to “evaluate whether Hunter and James Biden should have registered as foreign agents for their business arrangements with the Chinese government-back [sic] energy company CEFC.” The statement added that the Chinese company was “actively seeking to build influence in the United States when it partnered with the Bidens.”
The evidence, it seems, is there – but with Hunter Biden already on track to avoid prison for his alleged tax and gun crimes, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the Justice Department determines that he “willfully” failed to register.
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
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