Global Courant
Hunter Biden’s plea deal to one misdemeanor charge and two tax violations has been dismissed by critics as a “sweetheart” deal that sees others put behind bars for similar crimes.
The Justice Department announced last week that President Biden’s son agreed to plead guilty to two counts of willful failure to pay federal income taxes, and to enter into a trial diversion agreement on a separate charge of federal income tax. possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.
Hunter Biden will make his first court appearance in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, on July 26 when he will formally plead guilty. The plea deal avoids prosecution on charges of illegal possession of a firearm as a drug user, as well as a trial that could have taken days or even weeks.
There is still a chance that presiding U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika will reject the deal, but the plea deal has been hotly condemned, from conservative political leaders to voters who say Biden was merely slapped on the wrist.
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Hunter Biden disembarks Air Force One in Syracuse, New York, February 4, 2023. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz)
“It continues to show the bipartisan system in America,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said of Hunter Biden’s plea deal, likening it to the federal charges facing former President Donald Trump. “If you’re the president’s main political opponent, the DOJ is literally trying to put you in jail and give you jail time. But if you’re the president’s son, you’re getting a love deal.”
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Other Americans facing similar federal gun charges face months behind bars.
The head of the Crime Prevention and Research Center, John Lott, described in a post on his website the case of Deja Taylor, a Virginia woman whose 6-year-old son shot and wounded his teacher in January.
“Biden’s plea deal ‘allows him to evade potential charges of money laundering, bribery, human trafficking’ and being an unregistered foreign agent,” Lott wrote. “Deja Taylor had other issues as well. Her son used the gun to shoot a teacher, but Taylor was not charged with a crime in that case.”
Taylor was charged earlier this year with unlawfully using a controlled substance in possession of a firearm and making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm.
The controlled substance in this case was marijuana, which is legal in Virginia but is a controlled substance under US law and is still regulated by the federal government. Federal authorities said Taylor knew “she was an unlawful user” of marijuana when she purchased her firearm and denied using cannabis on documentation.
Deja Taylor booking photo (Newport Police News)
Taylor had no criminal record prior to the indictment. She pleaded guilty this month and is awaiting sentencing. The federal case against her could carry up to 25 years in prison, though her lawyers said sentencing guidelines call for 18 months to 24 months behind bars.
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“Of false statement cases in the purchase of a gun that are referred for prosecution, more than 60% are prosecuted,” Lott, a gun and crime expert who previously worked for the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs, told Fox News Digital. .
“And those who are not being prosecuted is because of problems with the evidence. These cases are settled quickly in a few months, not nearly five years. The evidence in the Hunter Biden case is rock solid. There is no doubt that he was a drug addict, that he used illegal drugs.”
Lott also objected to how US attorney David C. Weiss, who is handling the Biden case, has been characterized by the media as a “Trump appointee.”
Hunter Biden and Joe Biden (Getty Images)
“The idea is that (Weiss) has to be a Republican so there is no political bias in the way the Hunter Biden case was handled,” Lott said. “Yet President Obama originally appointed him as the acting U.S. attorney for the Delaware district. Trump appointed Weiss as the U.S. attorney at the request of the two Democratic U.S. senators from Delaware.”
Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and others on Twitter also criticized Biden’s “sweetheart deal,” comparing it to Taylor’s case.
James Ellenson, Taylor’s attorney, told Fox News Digital that he will address the “inconsistency” between his client’s case and Biden’s preliminary diversion agreement later this year.
“Unfortunately, Deja’s father is not the president of the United States, so not a sweetheart for us,” said Ellenson. “We will present the inconsistency to the sentencing judge.”
Fox News Digital previously reported on comparisons between the Biden case and how rapper Kodak Black was sentenced to more than three years in prison after pleading guilty to gun possession by a felon, possession of a stolen firearm and possession of marijuana.
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Kodak Black got “46 months for the very same thing that Hunter Biden isn’t even advocating for,” the rapper’s lawyer, Bradford Cohen, told Fox News’ “Hannity” on Wednesday.
“He’s actually getting a diversion program, which you almost never see in federal court,” Cohen said. “I mean, it’s less than 1% of people who advocate actually get a diversion program.”
Kodak Black arrives at the MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 27, 2017 in Inglewood, California. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
“If you calculate this, as you do in the federal system, he would score somewhere in the neighborhood of two years on this case,” Cohen said.
Trump eventually commuted Kodak Black’s sentence before leaving office in 2021.
Another man, Brion Martai Odell Hamilton of Oklahoma, faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in October to making false statements on ATF Form 4473, the Washington Times reported.
Hamilton had previously been convicted of carrying a firearm while under the influence of marijuana in Oklahoma County, and federal prosecutors determined that he lied on the ATF’s firearms transaction form regarding his eligibility to purchase a firearm.
Biden has been under investigation since 2018 following the discovery of suspicious activity reports involving funds from “China and other foreign nations”. His gun charges stemmed from allegations that he lied during a gun purchase in 2018.
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President Joe Biden (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Republicans this week have strongly criticized the deal, accusing Biden of using his father’s influence abroad during the Obama administration, when Joe Biden was vice president.
“America has 2 million people locked up right now,” Representative Clay Higgins, R-La., previously told Fox News Digital. “We have 6,000 prisons. We could have found a place for Hunter. But the truth is nobody really cares about Hunter Biden. Hunter was a budding influence trader and a troubled young man who sold access to his father. He is part of the Biden . crime in a playful way, but he’s not the Big Guy, he wasn’t the VP, and he’s not the inaugurated president.”
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“This is deflection, deflection, deflection,” R-Ariz. Representative Andy Biggs previously told Fox News Digital. “Hunter Biden has been involved in more serious crimes and this plea deal creates the illusion that justice has been done – it has not.”
The Justice Department declined to comment when contacted by Fox News Digital regarding Biden’s preliminary diversion agreement compared to similar cases. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Jessica Chasmar and Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
