Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, has reached an agreement with the Justice Department to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax offenses and also avoid prosecution on a separate weapons possession charge, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
This brings an explosive investigation with political repercussions into the finances, arms consumption and international business deals of the troubled son of the president of the United States to near closure. The news caught Biden Sr. on a three-day visit to California.
After months of negotiations, Hunter Biden’s lawyers and federal prosecutors, the defendant has pleaded guilty to paying the correct taxes in 2017 and 2018 at the right time and accepts the probation agreement.
The Department of Justice also charges him, but does not indict him, for the connection to the purchase of a gun when he was using narcotic substances. The pact will go through unless Hunter Biden doesn’t stay off drugs in the next 24 months and agrees forever to be gun free.
The agreement must be approved by a federal judge. Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear in court in Delaware in the coming days.
Joe Biden is not the first president whose children have problematic behavior, but this time, even for minor charges, the situation is aggravated when dealing with federal charges.
It is clear that this will have political repercussions. The most right-wing sector of the Republican Party has made the Hunter Biden case one of the elements to accuse the current president of corruption, as Donald Trump regularly repeats in his grievances.
However, in a first reading, those more extreme sectors already expressed their displeasure with the announcement of the pact. More suspicion arose because they wanted more blood.
“With the agreement, I understand that the five-year investigation of Hunter Biden is resolved,” his attorney Christopher Clark said in a statement. “Hunter accepts responsibility for him by pleading guilty.”
“President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden love their son and give him their full support in rebuilding his life,” the White House reported in a first reaction.
