The walls have closed in on Hunter Biden, the president’s beleaguered son whose shady business activities grow more nefarious by the day. Some semblance of accountability recently came in the form of a guilty plea, when Hunter admitted to federal tax evasion.
Based on the Justice Department’s court filings, Joe Biden’s son failed to pay taxes in a timely matter for the years 2017 and 2018, owing at least $200,000 in total. While the exact sentence remains unclear, a slap on the wrist is most likely. No punishment has been administered for Hunter’s nefarious business dealings with foreign governments in China, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries. So the walls have really only closed in a bit.
Despite countless millions of dollars being at stake in moves that potentially jeopardized U.S. national security, Hunter continues to duck responsibility—emboldened by a Washington establishment that fails to look closer at the evidence.
One thing is clear: Hunter Biden and “corruption” are synonymous. The president’s son clearly leveraged his last name and various political connections for personal profit. Hunter adds no other value to Chinese or Ukrainian energy companies but the close ties to his father and other high-ranking Democrats. Foreign companies knew that, paying Hunter for access, and access alone.
It’s not breaking news to suggest Hunter’s hands are dirty; they have never been clean. What matters more at the moment, however, is Joe Biden’s response to his son’s various scandals. And that response is far, far worse than any of Hunters’s transgressions. As federal regulators have probed Hunter in recent months, the president has repeatedly, stubbornly undermined their efforts to profess “love” for his son. (The liberal media all too willingly laps up the love story too.)
According to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley and others, Biden’s DOJ provided Hunter with preferential treatment, slow-walked all investigation into his business activities, and failed to mitigate any potential conflicts of interest involving the president. The recent federal tax charge is essentially a sweetheart deal brokered to benefit Joe Biden when a much more serious punishment was fair game.
Shapley, a 14-year IRS veteran, admitted that his attempts to look further into money trails connecting the president were blocked by more senior prosecutors. With roadblocks erected to protect Joe Biden, a sweetheart deal became inevitable, despite the possibility of Hunter coordinating with his father. All the while, the president’s son wrote off as business expenses the money paid for prostitutes, sex club memberships, and hotel rooms for alleged drug dealers. In Shapley’s words: “I would say that [senior prosecutors] limited certain investigative leads that could have potentially provided information on the President of the United States.”
There is a clear double standard when it comes to Joe Biden, a Democratic president and liberal media darling who is routinely portrayed as an “aw-shucks” figure. As Shapley put it, “If [Hunter] was a small business owner or any other non-connected individual, they would have been charged with felony counts.”
Just imagine if Donald Trump happened to be involved in the same situation. The former president, slammed for how he scooped ice cream or saluted U.S. troops, would be skewered in public discourse for even a dreamed-up connection to corruption in his personal orbit. If a “Russian collusion” myth somehow got Donald Trump impeached, what is the punishment for Joe Biden?
Biden isn't just protecting his son. As vice president, he potentially participated in a shakedown of foreign governments that has national security ramifications today. According to the New York Post, Israeli professor and "missing witness" Dr. Gal Luft was allegedly arrested in Cyprus to stop him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family received payments from people associated with Chinese military intelligence.
The mounting evidence of Biden’s criminal behavior is now forcing the hand of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who must take a stand.It won’t be an easy choice, since the Speaker of the House is traditionally hesitant to initiate an impeachment proceeding against a duly elected president. It is one of the most solemn decisions that a Speaker can make, and it should only be done under the most serious of circumstances.
Recent history has also shown that American voters are skeptical of the partisan abuse of the impeachment process, and they tend to rally in support of the president. Following the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky scandals, the Republican-controlled House impeached Bill Clinton, only for Clinton to finish his second term with the highest approval rating of any modern president. In a similar fashion, Trump, who was impeached twice based on obvious political motivations, now narrowly leads Biden in head-to-head 2024 polls.
Speaker McCarthy must consider the political ramifications of impeaching Biden entering an election year. Such a decision is fraught with political risks, but the evidence being brought by multiple whistleblowers against Biden has become overwhelming. If true, the alleged criminal activity is precisely why the Founding Fathers included the impeachment process in the U.S. Constitution.
By the standard of the anti-Trump Left, Biden should have already been impeached, without even mentioning the ongoing investigation into his mishandling of classified documents. If the allegations are true, the president was an accomplice to Hunter's crimes, possibly even receiving kickbacks himself. He therefore compromised the office of the presidency, putting himself at risk of blackmail at the whims of the Chinese government and others. Yet, to quote Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), the Washington establishment is now “working harder than an ugly stripper” to cover up for the Biden family.
As long as a sitting president is allowed to meddle in probes against his own family members, especially those who dealt frequently with foreign governments, U.S. national security will be in jeopardy. When foreign adversaries like China and Russia may have compromised a president’s son, only for that president and his son to be treated with kid gloves, America grows weaker.
At a time when strength is needed in geopolitics, the Bidens make America less secure. They only bring weakness, and we all suffer the consequences.
Ted Harvey serves as chairman of the Committee to Defeat the President.
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