Hunter Bidenson of President Joe Biden, once again became the center of a monstrous political storm this week that does not stop growing and that will mark the electoral campaign ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
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The president’s son, according to his lawyers, reached an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office in which pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for tax evasion and acknowledges a third for having lied when filling out a form required for the purchase of a firearm.
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The agreement, which still needs to be approved by a judge in Delaware, provides for a punishment of two years of probation and payment of the evaded taxes, plus the corresponding fines. An amount that Hunter had already disbursed since last year when he settled with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS, for its acronym in English).
For defenders of the presidential family, The deal marks the end of a saga that began five years ago when a prosecutor appointed by former President Donald Trump opened an investigation into Hunter’s dealings in China and Ukraine. which, according to Republicans, he obtained by offering influence over his father when he was vice president between 2008 and 2016.
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“I know Hunter believes it’s important to take responsibility for the mistakes you made during a turbulent and addictive period in your life. He now wants to look to the future and continue his recovery, ”Chris Park, one of his lawyers, said this week, alluding to the drug abuse problems that have surrounded the president’s son for several decades.
I know Hunter believes it’s important to take responsibility for the mistakes you made during a turbulent and addictive period in your life.
Hunter, say those same defenders, has had to battle in parallel with unwarranted attacks by his father’s political rivals. Hence The arrangement with the Prosecutor’s Office is also proof that justice in the US works even for the most powerful.
They point out, by the way, that the offenses recognized by Biden are minor as well as the punishment proportional to what justice contemplates for this type of case.
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For Republicans, however, it’s the opposite. According to Trump and his supporters, the agreement shows that two different standards are being applied and that the Democrats are using justice as a political tool.
“It’s a pat on the hand, and he won’t spend a single day in jail. On the contrary, at the same time, they want to put Trump in prison. Here there is a problem of fairness in justice,” said Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. Something that was echoed even by the former president’s rivals for the Republican Party nomination.
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According to Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, and one of those candidates: “If Hunter wasn’t connected to the political class, he’d be in a cell a long time ago.”
Both were referring to the decision of a special prosecutor who last week raised 37 criminal offenses against the former president for the illegal theft of White House documents and obstruction of justice. Likewise, probably, due to another case that was opened last March in New York involving the illegal payment of a porn actress to buy her silence on the eve of the 2016 elections.
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Over the surface, both cases -Trump’s and Hunter Biden’s- are related and lend themselves to suspicion. But deep down they are quite different..
In 2018, the Justice Department opened an investigation against Hunter for his role as an adviser to Chinese and Ukrainian companies that had interests in the United States, just as his father was Vice President of Barack Obama. This after Trump himself called for an investigation against the son of whom he was his most likely rival in the 2020 elections.
Something abnormal, since the Prosecutor’s Office is supposed to be independent, and it was seen as an improper use of the power of the presidency. The investigation fell to prosecutor David Weiss, who was appointed by Trump himself to fill the position.
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When Biden became president in 2021, he chose to leave Weiss in office even though he had the power to remove him. Precisely, he told himself at the time, to avoid suspicion. Weiss’s investigation initially focused on his work for those companies and the payment of $1.5 million for his services.
As evidence, a computer appeared that Hunter had left in a warehouse to be repaired and in which there was supposedly compromising evidence. The investigation, of which some details have been known, and which has a separate chapter in Congress, where Republicans advance their own conduct, revealed that Hunter had indeed used his family name and his potential influence to obtain the contracts. , but not that these had been translated into favors of the administration of that time.
If anything, it was an issue that figured high in the 2020 race between Biden and Trump and will now likely resurface again. Weiss eventually dropped the political component — the alleged favor-seeking — and set his eyes on Hunter’s 2017 and 2018 tax returns, where he failed to report those earnings.
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Although the prosecutor has said the investigation is not complete, this week’s agreement revolves around not paying $100,000 in taxes for those two years. Likewise, within the framework of the investigation, the form for the purchase of weapons emerged in which Biden did not declare his problem with drugs, something that would have disqualified him from obtaining a firearm and that carries a civil penalty that was also held. into account in the settlement with the Prosecutor’s Office.
The charges against Trump, on the other hand, are very serious. According to the special prosecutor, the former president not only removed dozens of documents containing US military secrets but also showed them to other unauthorized persons and blocked the efforts of the FBI when this body tried to recover them.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, these are direct violations of the Espionage Act, which provides for harsh sanctions since they involve national security.
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Hence, legally both cases inhabit different universes. Furthermore, while one directly involves Trump, the other refers to the conduct of one of Biden’s sons. Which, without a doubt, tarnishes the image of the Democratic president, but not his management in the presidency or his years in the vice presidency.
“What this episode highlights is Biden’s integrity, since he chose to leave a prosecutor appointed by Trump himself to investigate his son. It is a clear demonstration of his faith in the institutions and the independence of the judicial system, ”says David Brock, president of Facts First USA.
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The electoral weight
But in the hyper-polarized world that the US gravitates towards, it is a fact that will end up being irrelevant. In fact, the Hunter case and the charges against Trump will most likely become the lynchpin of this election campaign. And for several points.
First of all, Hunter’s mere guilty plea allows Republicans to claim the Bidens are a “corrupt” familyeven if it is the folly of one of its members.
Something that unnerves the president’s supporters, since both Trump and his family and companies have been accused and sanctioned for similar or worse cases. Last year, a court in New York sanctioned Trump Inc. for rigging the books to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes.
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“Hunter’s case, even if it is different, weakens Biden’s aura of transparency, which was something that differentiated him from Trump. Every time a new development against Trump emerges, or every time the president mentions his corruption and problems with the law, his rivals are going to say: And Hunter? It’s unfair, but it’s a political reality, says Cornell Belcher, an elections expert who has worked for several Democratic Party campaigns.
Hunter’s case, even if it is different, weakens Biden’s aura of transparency, which was something that differentiated him from Trump.
Also, while Hunter’s legal troubles appear to have come to an end, It is most likely that they will continue to give people something to talk about during the campaign, since Congress -with a Republican majority- will continue with its investigations even if they do not have legal consequences..
But, perhaps the most serious thing for the Biden campaign is that it allows the Republicans to round out their case that the justice system in the country is biased and that there is a vendetta against Trump to prevent his return to the White House.
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Something that they already firmly believe in the base of this party, and whose goal is to expand that perception to the rest of the electorate using Hunter as the main test.
As George Sargent opined in the Washington Post, That is where the Democrats must fight to overthrow an argument that, they say, is “perverse”.
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“In both cases -Hunter Biden, for seeing it as a pat on the hand; and Trump for considering they are persecuting him – the Republicans are attacking the judicial system simply because it does not suit their political interests. Democrats need to highlight, and aggressively, the perversity of that reality. A reality that is also incompatible with the law”, says Sargent.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
EL TIEMPO correspondent
Washington
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