Summarize in up to four sentences.: It’s time for clarity on Hunter Biden (and his dad)
Federal prosecutors seek to indict Hunter BidenScroll back up to restore default view.
Rick Newman
Rick Newman·Senior Columnist
Thu, September 7, 2023 at 2:52 p.m. EDT·6 min read
Is there a smoking gun? Or just an inert one?

The American public may soon find out, now that the Justice Dept. will reportedly indict President Biden’s son Hunter on charges of felony gun possession. Federal prosecutors could also charge Hunter Biden with tax evasion, for failing to pay about $200,000 in federal tax on income of more than $3 million in 2017 and 2018.

These would be nothingburger cases generating zero public interest if Hunter Biden weren’t the son of the president. As it is, however, Hunter Biden’s messy life has become a political liability for his father, and there’s a chance it could even sink Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid.

So there are merits to a public trial, or trials, that will air out issues that would have broadly escaped public scrutiny under the plea deal Hunter Biden thought he had worked out on the gun and tax charges. That deal fell apart in July, which is why Hunter now seems to be headed to trial — assuming another plea deal doesn't emerge.

A Hunter Biden criminal trial would also even the stakes somewhat in the Trump-Biden Family Corruption Sweepstakes. Former President Donald Trump is now a defendant in four criminal prosecutions, including two brought by Biden’s Justice Dept. The evidence against Trump is compelling, yet Trump claims he’s the victim of political persecution. A criminal prosecution against the president’s son by the same Justice Dept. would establish a kind of symmetry in the handling of presidential scandals.

The scope and gravity of the Trump charges swamp Hunter Biden's alleged crimes. But charges aren’t convictions, and since it will be up to a jury to decide if Trump is guilty in each of his criminal cases, then a jury outcome is appropriate for Hunter Biden, too.

Hunter Biden’s misbehavior falls into two categories: business dealings that were unseemly but not illegal, and other acts that were criminalish enough for Hunter to acknowledge guilt in the plea deal that unraveled. The biggest question for the American public isn’t what Hunter Biden did, but whether his father Joe had any complicity in his son’s efforts to cash in on the family name and use his pull in Washington to enrich himself.

So far, there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and that’s after five years of digging dating back to Trump’s presidency. Trump was obviously desperate to find dirt on Biden that he could use to discredit his 2020 presidential rival, and he knew Hunter was the most likely conduit. Trump didn’t find anything.

Still, Hunter Biden’s shady dealings as a drug-addicted consultant and board member for businesses in China and Ukraine do raise red flags. It’s clear, for instance, that Hunter Biden’s main qualification for lucrative employment by Ukrainian and Chinese business was his last name. The most questionable conduct occurred when Joe Biden was vice president. Hunter Biden and two partners set up an investment firm in Shanghai in 2013, for instance. Then in 2014, Hunter joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

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Republicans have been trying to prove that Joe Biden, as vice president, somehow intervened in US policy to aid Hunter’s businesses.

So far, there’s zero evidence of that. There is evidence that Joe Biden, who talked with his son on the phone frequently, had a few conversations with Hunter while others were in the room. He also had dinner a couple of times with Hunter and some of his business associates. But that’s as far as it goes, and nobody has been able to link phone conversations and dinners with any action Biden ever took or tried to take to benefit Hunter’s businesses.

One of Hunter’s business partners, Devon Archer, said in August testimony before the House Oversight Committee that in the phone chats he overheard with Joe Biden, “there was no business conversation. … It was, you know, just general niceties and, you know, conversation in general, you know, about the geography, about the weather, whatever it may be.” Archer said that what Hunter Biden really brought to the table wasn’t any kind of ability to influence activities in Washington, but “an illusion of access to his father.”

Joe Biden may be guilty of one thing: bad judgment.

He must have known his son was trading on the family name to earn at least $11 million from 2013 to 2018. As far as we know, Dad never told Junior to knock it off and find honest work. We also know that Beau Biden, Joe’s son and Hunter’s brother, developed brain cancer in 2013 and died from it two years later. Hunter Biden, an alcoholic, relapsed after his brother’s death and entered a deep depression compounded by a crack cocaine addiction. This is around the same time Joe Biden called his son frequently to talk about niceties and such. So compassionate critics might think the Biden family deserves a bit of a break.

Is there more? Is Joe Biden so devious he really provided government favors for his son, enriching his family while burying the evidence? If so, the best chance of finding out is going through a trial and giving prosecutors the authority to dig up everything relevant. Attorney General Merrick Garland has set the stage for that, elevating Biden prosecutor David Weiss to special-counsel status, which will give him more leeway and authority to do a wide-ranging investigation. The Bidens may resent that, but if Joe Biden is truly innocent, then a thorough investigation attesting to that would be beneficial to him.

Trump currently leads in the Corruption Sweepstakes, but Biden isn’t that far behind. In a recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll, 53% of respondents said Trump and his family are corrupt, while 45% said Biden and his family are corrupt. There’s a big difference, however: Impressions of Trump family corruption come largely from Donald Trump himself, who’s running for president again. Impressions of Biden family corruption come largely from Hunter, who’s never been an elected official and probably will never be.

Not all voters blame Joe Biden for the sins of his son, but Republicans may have had some success, so far, in broadly tarring “the Bidens” as shady, without distinguishing who did something and who did nothing. A Hunter Biden trial would clarify that. It may or may not benefit the Bidens, but it would be good for voters who care enough to understand whether Joe Biden is corrupt, or merely related to somebody who is.

Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.

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