Hunter Biden assumed he would soon be breathing a sigh of relief as he walked toward the courthouse in late July.
His father, the President of the United States, also wished so Joe Biden. He assumed his son would disappear from the public eye well before the presidential election campaign intensified.
Hunter Biden was only supposed to linger in court and complete a routine procedure. The judge was to confirm the settlement with the prosecutor, which is customary in the United States. Biden would plead guilty to two tax crimes. In return, he would avoid more serious charges and not have to go through a lengthy trial.
The most important thing for Biden in the mediation solution was that he would be granted immunity from prosecution. No new charges could be brought against him from the long-running criminal investigation. He would be able to continue his life, and he would not be dragged into the election campaign as a pawn.
That didn’t happen.
Unsurprisingly, the mediation collapsed and now it appears that the US Department of Justice is going to trial against the president’s son during the presidential election.
How did the president’s son’s legal troubles get to this point?
Hunter’s Ukrainian business has been investigated for a long time
His father’s second son, 53-year-old Hunter Biden has been educated at top universities and has worked as a lawyer and investment banker during his life, among other things.
However, Hunter Biden has received attention in the public mainly because of his messy business transactions and his substance abuse problem.
In July, at a Wilmington courthouse, Biden was expected to admit that because of his drug problem, he failed to timely file tax returns on more than $1.5 million in income from 2017 and 2018.
Biden’s 24-year marriage ended in divorce in 2017, after which his drug use spiraled out of control.
At the same time, however, Biden earned large incomes from foreign transactions, especially Ukraine. The Ukrainian gas company Burisma, embroiled in money laundering scandals, had hired Biden on the company’s board for the years 2014-2019 with an annual salary of 1.2 million dollars to promote the company’s international relations.
Republicans have long suggested that in his dealings, Hunter sold access to his father’s speeches and engaged in corruption. In 2019, the then president Donald Trump called the President of Ukraine directly to Volodymyr Zelenskyi and urged him to investigate Biden’s actions. Trump hoped Zelensky would find a suitable election weapon for him against Joe Biden for the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s call to Zelensky did not produce results. Later, Trump was voted into criminal charges in Washington for pressuring Zelensky, because after the phone call, Trump froze the military aid already granted to Ukraine.
However, an investigation into Hunter Biden’s transactions was started in Finland. Delaware State Attorney appointed by Trump David Weiss has been investigating Hunter’s criminal allegations since 2019, and was not removed from the investigation after Biden entered the White House.
The long investigation was supposed to end in July with mediation at the courthouse. However, the atmosphere in the courtroom was more tense than a routine hearing.
Hunter Biden insisted that the immunity from prosecution in the settlement would apply to the entire criminal investigation into his foreign transactions. Weiss wanted immunity from prosecution only for the tax offense and illegal possession of a weapon.
Weaker prosecution protection would have meant that Biden’s legal troubles would not end. One of the key election promises of Trump, who wants to return to the presidency, is to bring new charges against the current president’s son.
The judge at the courthouse Maryellen Noreika was confused by the ambiguity of the mediation defense. In the end, Biden’s lawyer stated that they would reject the settlement. Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to the crimes and left the courthouse.
In a couple of weeks, the Minister of Justice Merrick Garland promoted Weiss to special prosecutor. Weiss was given the authority to expand the investigation and bring new charges. Weiss told the first that the negotiations on the mediation solution have been stopped.
The investigation into Hunter Biden’s dealings continues and will likely move toward a trial.
The transactions have been questionable
Hunter Biden’s transactions have been investigated alongside a judicial investigation in the country’s Congress, where Republicans are feverishly trying to find evidence of President Biden’s involvement in his son’s transactions.
In the Republican-led investigation, Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer testifiedthat Biden sold “the illusion of access to his father” to attract business partners.
Archer sat on Burisma’s board at the same time as Hunter Biden. According to Archer, for example, Hunter called his father on speakerphone in the middle of business meetings, but the calls did not deal with transactions. Joe Biden probably didn’t even know who was on the other end of the call.
Archer denied that Joe Biden was involved in any way in his son’s business dealings. However, Archer said Burisma probably would have collapsed without the brand value Hunter Biden brought to the company.
The Republican representative leading the congressional investigation James Comer said the testimony showed that then-Vice President Biden was a family brand that Hunter Biden sold to enrich the entire family. According to the White House, the certificate, on the other hand, only showed that Joe Biden did not participate in his son’s business transactions.
Newspaper of The Wall Street Journal according to a recent investigation, no evidence has so far shown that there was anything illegal in Hunter’s transactions or that Joe Biden assisted his son from the administration.
The only indictment likely to face Hunter Biden concerns the improper accounting of his transactions, not the legality of his transactions per se. However, Biden has admitted that he showed poor judgment when he accepted a position on Burisma’s board.
Biden’s impeachment is unlikely
In Washington, right-wing Republican congressmen have argued all year that Hunter Biden’s messy dealings are reason enough to impeach President Biden.
The Speaker, who leads the Republicans in the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy has, however, stalled the impeachment proceedings.
Researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute Maria Lindén estimates that Biden’s official criminal charge is possible, but not likely. Impeachment requires a majority in the House of Representatives, and Republicans only have a ten-seat majority.
– Almost all Republican representatives do not think impeachment is a good idea, because the screen is so thin, says Lindén.
Lindén estimates that only new incriminating information about Hunter Biden could make practically all Republicans stand trial. In the current situation, Joe Biden’s misdemeanor charge could turn against the Republicans if the people interpreted the charge as petty.
Voters have not been interested in Hunter so far
The most likely scenario for next year’s US presidential election is a rematch between Biden and Trump.
Trump himself may have up to four different trials during the election year. In his campaign, Trump is trying to make Joe Biden look corrupt with the help of Hunter Biden’s legal problems.
Trump has failed to mention that he himself did not relinquish control of his businesses as president and appointed his own family members to White House positions. Among other things, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner directed the Trump administration’s Middle East policy and later founded an investment firm that received funding worth two billion dollars from Saudi Arabia.
So far, voters have not shown much interest in Hunter Biden as an election theme.
News channel Fox News in the survey, half of the voters believe that there was something illegal in Hunter Biden’s transactions, but in a news agency conducted in June Reuters commissioned poll, only 13% of unaffiliated voters said that with their son’s lawsuit, they are significantly less likely to vote for Joe Biden.
Lindén says the measurement suggests that a significant portion of the unaffiliated voters who largely decide the election care about things other than Hunter Biden.
– For a large part, Trump’s four criminal charges against the candidate himself are really much more serious than one criminal charge against a member of the candidate’s family, Lindén estimates.
The son’s trial may interfere with campaigning
The pace of Hunter Biden’s criminal investigation progress or its impact on the desire to vote for Joe Biden is still unclear.
However, Maria Lindén predicts that the stress caused by Hunter Biden’s legal concerns will likely affect 80-year-old Joe Biden’s ability to campaign next year.
As an example, Lindén cites the devastating wildfires in Hawaii in early August, which started shortly after Hunter Biden’s mediation process collapsed. Biden was slow to react to the events in Hawaii, although natural disasters are often good opportunities for presidents to show leadership.
– Biden messed up Hawaii. He usually doesn’t mess up like this. He has been considered an exceptionally strong empathetic leader and he usually shines in situations where the nation is faced with tragedy, says Lindén.
– It is difficult to see any reason for this other than the fact that he was in his own thoughts about his son’s situation.
Joe Biden lost his first wife in a car crash in the 1970s Neilian and his daughter Naomi’s. Biden has also lost his second son Beau to cancer almost ten years ago.
– Hunter Biden is all he has left of his first family. How could she not worry about her son? Lindén asks.
The justice system is shaking under the election
The United States is moving rapidly towards an election year, where Trump’s multiple trials and Hunter Biden’s possible trial will mix as part of the election campaign.
Lindén estimates that in the eyes of the people, the judiciary will become even more politicized during the elections. Judges in court cases are evaluated more and more strongly through party-political glasses, and a large part of the people consider the operation of the court to be a political chase.
– The judiciary is in trouble, the judiciary is in deep trouble. What is the reputation of the judiciary after these trials have taken place? It remains to be seen – but it’s terrifying to think what these will cause to the institution, says Lindén.
You can discuss the topic until Tuesday 29 August 2023 at 23:00.