(NEW YORK) — The indictment of Hunter Biden on Thursday made one thing all but certain: President Joe Biden will embark on a 2024 reelection bid dogged once again by his son’s tumultuous business and personal life.
The younger Biden is facing felony charges related to false statements in purchasing a firearm, and a third count of illegally obtaining a firearm while addicted to drugs. But with prosecutors continuing to scrutinize his overseas business deals and financial records, the gun charges might soon be just one thread in a potential web of legal troubles.
In June, Hunter Biden struck a plea agreement with prosecutors that would have allowed him to plead guilty to a pair of misdemeanor tax offenses — before the deal fell apart during a court hearing in July after U.S. Judge Maryellen Noreika expressed concern over the structure of the agreement.
Special counsel David Weiss subsequently withdrew the two tax charges in Delaware with the intention of bringing them in California and Washington, D.C. — the venues where the alleged misconduct occurred.
Investigators have examined whether Hunter Biden paid adequate taxes on millions of dollars of his income, including money he made from multiple overseas business ventures. ABC News previously reported that in 2022, he borrowed $2 million from his lawyer and confidant Kevin Morris to pay the IRS for back taxes, penalties and liens that he owed.
Prosecutors have not offered a timeline for the tax charges.
Meanwhile, the president’s political foes have latched onto Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings to level allegations depicting the entire Biden family as corrupt, despite uncovering no clear evidence to date indicating that Joe Biden profited from or meaningfully endorsed his son’s work.
“Today’s charges are a very small start, but unless U.S. Attorney Weiss investigates everyone involved in the fraud schemes and influence peddling, it will be clear President Biden’s DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden and the big guy,” House Oversight Chair James Comer said in a statement to ABC News, referencing unproven allegations against Hunter Biden and his father.
Comer said Republicans are looking for indictments related to “money laundering, violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, tax evasion, the list goes on and on.”
A White House spokesperson has said that “congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to push claims that have been debunked for years,” and that President Biden “was never in business with his son.”
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
