How Hunter Biden’s ‘sweetheart’ plea deal eviscerates his father’s credibility

In his job interview with voters during the 2020 election, Joe Biden assured Americans that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, he never had any dealings with his family’s business partners and that his son was innocent of any wrongdoings.

While the first two claims were shattered long ago, the 46th president has held firm on the last. “My son has done nothing wrong,” he proclaimed just a few short weeks ago.

The criminal information filed Tuesday in federal court charging Hunter Biden with intentionally avoiding payment of federal taxes and lying about his drug use to buy a handgun debunks Joe Biden’s last line of defense.

Conservatives from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on down derided the plea agreement as a “sweetheart deal” and a “traffic ticket” emblematic of a “two-tiered” justice system because it spares Hunter Biden from prison while leaving Donald Trump facing hundreds of years in prison on 71 felonies in two separate indictments.

But the plain language of the deal threatens to boomerang on the Biden Democrat agenda for 2024 that has made one of its centerpieces harsher gun control and an IRS crackdown on tax cheats.

Hunter Biden has agreed to “two counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax” and can have dismissed a felony charge of “possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user,” holdover Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss wrote the court Tuesday outlining the plea deal.

The extraordinary reversal in the Democrats’ definition of Hunter Biden truth was in full view in the statement his lawyer Christopher Clark issued Tuesday.

Instead of the five years of denial that preceded it – when journalists like this author and New York Post columnist Miranda Devine were falsely portrayed as conspiracy theorists and disinformation artists – Team Biden was dishing a sudden platter of accountability.

"Hunter will take responsibility for two instances of misdemeanor failure to file tax payments when due pursuant to a plea agreement.  A firearm charge, which will be subject to a pretrial diversion agreement and will not be the subject of the plea agreement, will also be filed by the Government," Clark said. "I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life.”

Democrats immediately distributed talking reports to their favorites in media suggesting the plea deal, if approved by a judge, will put an end to the Biden family controversy. “It is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved," Clark told reporters in starting the mantra.

But the truth is the evaluation of just how much Joe Biden misled the American public to win the presidency is just coming into focus.

His claims that his family got no monies from China, that he never met with Hunter, Biden’s business pals, that the laptop was disinformation (aided by 51 intelligence experts who affirmed that falsehood in a letter) and that his son did nothing wrong are now demonstrably false.

And the attacks on journalists, lawyers and investigators like GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson who pursued the truth are now made all the more hideous.

The lead House GOP investigator of Biden family businesses declared the lies may have been designed to hide an uglier truth about public corruption.

“Hunter Biden is getting away with a slap on the wrist when growing evidence uncovered by the House Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery,” panel Chairman James Comer said Tuesday.

President Biden chose to avoid addressing or correcting his prior false claims when word of the plea deal emerged.

"The President and First Lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment," White House spokesman Ian Sams said.

While the plea deal addresses alleged tax evasion from the period of 2017-18, Congress is set to make public evidence as early as this week showing federal agents were building a larger case against Hunter Biden that involved alleged tax evasion on hundreds of thousands of dollars of income from Burisma Holdings in Ukraine.

The House Ways and Means Committee could vote in a few day to release the testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley. Shapley alleged in his testimony that federal prosecutors allowed the statute of limitations to expire on counts involving earlier and larger tax evasion and impeded FBI and IRS agents working with him from taking certain investigative steps.