Hunter Biden has been the target of multiple investigations, accusations – and formal charges. But the president’s son is not sitting passively on the defensive. Rather, Biden and his legal team are making aggressive counterattacks.
“In a two-week span in September, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani over the release of personal material on Biden’s laptop, the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly revealing confidential information about his taxes and former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler for allegedly accessing and tampering with computer data that he does not own,” USA Today reported.
Hunter’s legal team didn’t stop there, issuing third-party subpoenas in connection to Hunter’s laptop, to several Trump insiders, including Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Giuliani, and others.
“The moves taking aim at Hunter Biden’s accusers reflect a more aggressive legal strategy adopted by his attorney, Abbe Lowell, who was hired last December,” USA Today reported. Biden, after months on his heels, appears to be taking some initiative – at least in a legal sense.
Turning a corner
“The Republicans have had the microphone to themselves for many, many months,” said Democratic operative David Brock, in reference to the Republican-led investigations into Hunter Biden’s affairs. “The thinking is to put some facts out there in the public domain so that the public can have a more accurate picture of Hunter and what went on here rather than the distorted Republican lens that is refracted through most of the media coverage.”
The majority of the press coverage relating to Hunter Biden has stemmed from the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings. Continually, the Republican-led committee has promised juicy revelations, but so far, has failed to deliver, raising questions about the leadership and direction of the committee. To date, the House has failed to demonstrate substantive evidence of Biden family wrongdoing – which is not to say that wrongdoing never occurred. I can’t speak to that. But that House has so far failed to demonstrate anything concrete.
Prosecutors, however, have offered something substantive, bringing charges against Hunter Biden on three gun-related charges – all of which Biden plead not guilty to after a plea deal collapsed. The charges stem from Biden’s purchase of a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver in 2018; on the purchase paperwork, Biden said that he was not using drugs when he was in fact using drugs.
Lowell berated the gun charges as “the result of political pressure from President Trump and his MAGA allies to force the Justice Department to ignore the law and deviate from its policies in cases like this one.”
“Hunter Biden’s lawyers have argued the charges are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment and barred under prior plea agreement that fell apart,” USA Today reported. “Lowell has said there’s evidence that will exonerate Hunter Biden “when and if there is a trial.””
The gun charges are not Biden’s only legal worries; the president’s son may also face tax-evasion charges. Biden has previously been on the cusp of reaching a plea deal with the tax-evasion charges, but a federal judge nixed the deal, leaving Biden open to prosecution from US Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-appointee, who is currently investigating Biden’s failure to punctually pay taxes in 2017 and 2018.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor and opinion writer at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
