less politically charged, but just as disgusting

Victor Boolen

less politically charged, but just as disgusting

Hunter Biden may not be the political football he was when his father Joe Biden was still running for president, but he will be in the spotlight as he faces several tax fraud and tax evasion charges in Los Angeles. a week and, if convicted, faces up to 22 years in prison.

The case likely involves all the confusing details of the younger Biden’s life — the millions he earned from lucrative foreign consulting firms, his broken relationships and high-profile Hollywood life, his crack cocaine addiction and the tens of thousands he spent on it. online pornography — which not so long ago prompted partisan Republicans to seize the opportunity to inflict political damage on an Oval Office official.

Now, however, the political optics may be quite different, as this trial, which comes on top of an earlier one in June in which Hunter Biden was found guilty of a federal weapons charge, is likely to undermine the debate between former President Donald Trump and the president. others that the Biden administration has politicized and “weaponized” the Justice Department to go after its enemies.

Related: Right-wing media banned Trump’s trial. What about Hunter Biden?

It is even possible that Hunter Biden’s trial will coincide with Trump’s conviction in the first criminal trial in New York state, where the former president was found guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying documents to cover up a sexual encounter. with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Sentencing is set for September 18, and if that date holds, the overlap with Hunter Biden’s trial will only blunt Trump’s usual rhetoric about being the victim of a rigged system led by Joe Biden.

“So much for the gun,” former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin told CNN after Hunter Biden’s final trial. “This is an indication that the Department of Justice … is trying its best to steer right down the middle.”

In Los Angeles, Hunter Biden is facing nine charges stemming from his failure to file four years of taxes on time, including two felony counts of filing a false return and an additional count of tax evasion.

The account presented by federal prosecutors at the indictment would make unsettling reading for any defendant, let alone the son of a sitting president. Prosecutors say Biden failed to file his tax returns on time from 2016 to 2019, despite earning millions of dollars from his consulting work with Ukrainian industrial group Burisma and a Chinese private equity firm.

When he finally filed his 2018 return, the indictment says he misclassified personal expenses as business deductions, including his children’s college tuition and more than $27,000 he spent on online pornography.

Prosecutors say Biden can’t legitimately claim financial hardship because he earned more than enough to meet his tax obligations and because well-connected Hollywood entertainment lawyer Kevin Morris, called a “personal friend” in the lawsuit, spotted him $1.2 million. , which he spent on a luxury rental near Venice Beach, a Porsche and other items.

“During 2016 and October 15, 2020,” the indictment continues, “the defendant used [his] money for drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rentals, exotic cars, clothes and other personal items, in short, everything but his taxes.”

In pre-trial hearings, Biden’s defense team has not disputed the facts of what papers he submitted and what fees he paid when. Rather, they seem ready to argue diminished responsibility, pointing to his drug addiction in the years under review and trying to explain it as the result of trauma dating back to Hunter Biden’s childhood, when his mother and sister were killed. in a car crash.

“They [the prosecution] create a portrait for the jury of someone who was down in West Hollywood and just decided to party and do cocaine like he didn’t have a care in the world,” Biden’s lead lawyer, celebrity attorney Mark Geragos, complained. in court last month. Out of context, Geragos argued that such a description was “a form of character assassination” and a deliberate attempt by the prosecutor to make his client “look bad.”

Judge Mark Scarsi made such arguments short, denying Geragos’ request to present evidence of his client’s childhood and warning him that violating that ruling could result in “six-figure sanctions.” “I don’t know if there’s any good evidence of what causes addiction,” Scarsi said. “Why does the cause of Mr. Biden’s addiction matter?”

The prosecutor made the same point. “No matter how many drugs you do,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise said, “you don’t suddenly forget that when you make $11 million, you have to pay taxes.”

Unlike the gun trial in Delaware in June, this case is likely to raise controversy over Hunter Biden’s business connections — because they account for his high salary — and the question, which Republicans have pressed hard for years, of whether he owed those connections to his family name and influence.

In a report ending a failed attempt to impeach Joe Biden, Republican House representatives again alleged last week that Hunter Biden had taken advantage of his father’s position as vice president under Barack Obama to obtain “favorable foreign business dealings and legal proceedings.”

The allegation of foreign business ties may still sting, although it no longer has the same force now that Biden has dropped out of the Democratic nomination in favor of Kamala Harris. The charges from the trials could be short-lived if a jury returns a second guilty verdict for Hunter Biden within four months.

Jury selection will begin on Thursday, with opening statements expected on Monday, September 9. Lawyers for both sides have said the trial is likely to last about two weeks.

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