Hunter Biden Takes Plea Deal on Tax & Gun Charges, But Legal Trouble May Not Be Over

this is democracy now democracynow.org I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez Hunter Biden the son of the president has reached a deal with Federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges as part of a deal that'll allow him to avoid facing prosecution on a separate gun charge the deal caps a multi-year investigation by the U.S attorney in Delaware who is appointed by Donald Trump but

allowed to stay in his role by President Biden House Republicans have described the deal as a slap on the wrist and vowed to continue to investigate Hunter Biden for more we're joined by Ken klippenstein investigative reporter with the intercept who co-wrote the piece with Ryan Grimm headlined what does the FBI have on Hunter and Joe Biden Ken thanks so much for being with us why don't

you lay out the results of this case and again it's not the Democrats who are criticizing here it's the Republicans who have been going after Hunter Biden for so many years thanks for having me Amy um to speak to the case uh in May a whistleblower FBI whistleblower came forward to Senator Chuck Grassley who is the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee which oversees the FBI

and in this whistleblowers report alleged that the FBI had something called an fd-1023 that's the type of document that memorializes tips that they get from what's called confidential human sources that's FBI speak for informants and according to and you know I should remind listeners that the information we're getting from this is from both Grassley and representative Comer who sits on who chairs the oversight committee so

with this fd-1023 claims according to them is that President then Vice President Joe Biden received 5 million dollars in exchange for policy decisions specifically to fire to get to to get fire at the top prosecutor of Ukraine who had been investigating what's called Barista Holdings this is one of the biggest natural gas companies in Ukraine and the allegation is that the reason for that payment is

uh President Biden's son Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors of barisma but what's left out in a lot of the you know frankly partisan discussion about this and that's really the reason that we did the story was just to look at what the basic facts were is that this fd-1023 that's just an allegation they have not been verified and that's something that if you

look closely at the what the Republicans are saying the more cautious ones have conceded that laptop and the the attempt to suppress it and so the investigation apparently found nothing uh illegal in that laptop well it's complicated there are a number of Investigations in when the FBI talks about these things they're always very vague about it um you know they don't want to interfere with an

ongoing investigation but what was interesting about the laptop case is that yes um you know former mayor Rudy Giuliani played a role in having it delivered to the FBI they ended up investigating it it appears from these charges at least that that that was not something that resulted in in you know prosecutorial charges but that's something that the Republicans have been pushing very ardently to to

to try to investigate but there's no there's been no information from that laptop uh verifying any of the allegations I described before and in terms of the plea agreement of reached there are some that say that that even prosecution for these uh misdemeanors was a stretch and of course the Republicans are arguing that this was extreme a leniency and a double standard by the justice department

when it came to Hunter Biden your sense of The Facts of what uh you've uncovered yeah there have been a number of uh I saw recently quoted a public defender describing how unusual uh the sentence was in terms of how aggressively it was prosecuted but we're in territory that's you know extremely politically uh sensitive and and you know very very partisan in nature I mean these

top Republicans that I mentioned before uh representative Comer again cherished the oversight committee and then uh Senator Grassley have all but admitted um that uh you know president Trump is being former president Trump is being prosecuted in the classified documents case in New York and they've all come out and said you know why why don't they prosecute uh Biden and so they're very explicitly connecting the

two cases and not being particularly subtle about the partisan and political nature of of of their their call for for these investigations prosecutions and Ken if you can quickly say what he has um pled guilty to explain the gun in tax charges yeah so um he pled guilty to uh the uh tax charges in exchange for not being prosecuted uh for the gun charges and so

he was in possession of these Firearms at a time that he by his own admission uh was in the throes of uh addiction issues uh and so uh this was basically a deal with the prosecutors to get them not to prosecute on the other half of the case which a lot of Republicans are looking at and saying you know look how soft they went on him

but that's a you know very standard procedure by which prosecutors adhere offering lighter sentences in exchange for admissions and finally we just have 10 seconds but the U.S attorney Trump appointed that's right Ken clippenstein I want to thank you for being with us investigative border reporter with the intercept we'll link to the piece that you co-wrote with Ryan Grimm what does the FBI have on Hunter

and Joe Biden that does it for a show democracy Now produced with Renee Felts Mike Burke Dean August or Messiah Rhodes nurmeen Sheikh Murray Terrace I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez thanks so much for joining us