Did Hunter Biden Get Off Easily?

[gipper]

Funny thread by a warmongering neocon.

Uniparty partisans love to condemn their avowed enemy for corruption, yet corruption is rampant by both sides. A dumb 12 year old could see this, it’s so damn obvious.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

 

[Toro]

Well, this will piss off the Hunter Hunter Hunter crowd!

Dems say document given to Giuliani rebuts GOP claims about Biden bribery

An executive of Burisma, a Ukrainian firm that employed Hunter Biden, said in a 2019 questionnaire that no one at the company ever had contact with Joe Biden.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[otto105]

You think he didn’t get a cut? 10% would be a mere $200M. Poor Jared!

WASHINGTON — The Ukrainian oligarch Republicans claim bribed Joe Biden said he never actually talked to Biden, according to an interview transcript made public Thursday by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).

Mykola Zlochevsky is a co-founder of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma that employed Biden’s son Hunter for several years. Zlochevsky served as Ukraine’s energy minister, but has been in hiding since fleeing corruption charges.

Republicans claim there’s evidence Zlochevsky paid Joe Biden a $5 million bribe when he was vice president in exchange for an official favor. They’ve demanded the FBI hand over a document reflecting a confidential source’s conversation with Zlochevsky.

Raskin has now countered with a document of his own — a three-page transcript of a 2019 interview between Zlochevsky and an acquaintance of Rudy Giuliani, who at the time was publicly seeking dirt on Biden on behalf of then-President Donald Trump.

“No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement” with Burisma, Zlochevsky says in the transcript.

When asked if the vice president had assisted him or his company “in any way,” Zlochevsky says no.

Politico in 2020 reported the contents of the transcript, and Democrats have repeatedly referred to it in response to Republican claims that the FBI is withholding derogatory material against Biden. Democrats obtained the transcript in 2019 in their impeachment inquiry into Trump for pressuring Ukraine to announce a sham investigation of the Bidens.

Raskin has said FBI officials told him the Justice Department assessed the derogatory material on Biden and found it wasn’t worth formally investigating, but the bureau has declined to make any public statements to that effect. So Raskin has turned to what lawmakers already have on hand from Zlochevsky.

“Despite being interviewed as part of a campaign by Mr. Giuliani and his proxies in 2019 and 2020 to procure damaging information about the Biden family, Mr. Zlochevsky explicitly and unequivocally denied those allegations,” Raskin said in a letter to House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on Thursday.

“Mr. Zlochevsky’s statements are just one of the many that have debunked the corruption allegations against President Biden that were first leveled by Rudy Giuliani and have been reviewed by former President Trump’s own Justice Department,” Raskin said.

State Department officials have said they considered Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board during his father’s vice presidency awkward because it looked like a conflict of interest. Joe Biden at the time was the face of the U.S. government’s Ukraine policy and urged the country to root out corruption, including by firing its top prosecutor.

Trump dispatched Giuliani to find evidence that Biden’s action was designed to protect his son, but Republicans have been unable to substantiate claims that the elder Biden bent U.S. foreign policy in his family’s favor. An investigation by Senate Republicans in 2020 concluded it was “not clear” that Hunter Biden’s position with Burisma affected the U.S. government’s stance toward Ukraine.

 

[The Duke]

As everyone inside the RW media echo chamber doom loop knows, Hunter Biden and "The Biden Crime Syndicate" is "The Greatest Most Corrupt Threat to America Since America!" Thus, because the RW media echo chamber doom loop needs constant enemies to tell its viewers that America Is Under Constant Attack by Democrats, this narrative is on RW media all the time.

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Of course, the RW media echo chamber doom loop never seems to mention the billions of dollars Jared Kushner took from the Saudis. This doesn't bother MAGA because cult. Even though MAGA is a giant grift machine, only Democrats are corrupt!

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Lately, MAGA has been whining that Hunter received a "sweetheart deal" even though the prosecutor was a Trump appointee whom Trump lavished praise upon when he was appointed. But hey, victimhood grievance is big in MAGA media because ka-ching!

So did he receive a sweetheart deal? Let's ask other prosecutors.

The Wall Street Journal reviewed more than a hundred federal court dockets and interviewed almost a dozen former federal prosecutors to see whether the deal struck with Hunter Biden was different than it would have been for anyone else.​

First, on the gun charges

In looking at a sample of more than 100 federal cases involving the same charge, few had facts directly analogous to Hunter Biden’s case.​

​

“When people are prosecuted for possessing a gun while using drugs it is usually because authorities believed they posed a danger,” said Rod Rosenstein, former deputy attorney general under Trump who also focused on violent crime cases when he was U.S. attorney in Maryland. ...​

​

Occasionally, the charge is made on its own, as it was in the Biden case, and some lengthy prison sentences have been handed down. But typically other factors were involved in either the investigation or the arrest, including concerns by law enforcement about threats of violence or previous criminal history. ...​

​

Though Hunter Biden hasn’t been described as a threat to others nor did he have any prior criminal history, prosecutors have a significant amount of discretion to pursue charges as they see fit.​

Nonetheless

Some former prosecutors said the high-profile nature of the Biden case combined with his well-documented crack addiction, which he chronicled in detail in his memoir “Beautiful Things” necessitated pursuing a case against him. Others said the remedy—the ability to avoid prosecution for compliant behavior—sends the wrong message as the Justice Department is seeking to combat gun crime which typically rises in the summer months.​

So maybe. But it's debatable.

What about on tax charges?

Former tax prosecutors said the Hunter Biden case likely presented the Justice Department with several challenges that cut in favor of negotiating a plea deal rather than taking the case to trial.​

​

Most tax cases involve felony charges, such as tax evasion or fraud. Hunter Biden intends to plead guilty to misdemeanor offenses. But it is not unusual for the Justice Department to pursue misdemeanor charges in cases where the defendant has just failed to file or pay taxes over multiple years and owed significant sums.​

​

To bring more serious felony charges against Hunter Biden, as some critics say the Justice Department should have considered, federal prosecutors would have required compelling evidence that showed the younger Biden took deliberate steps to evade taxes or fraudulently lower his tax bill beyond failing to pay. His defense lawyers also could have pointed to his well-documented addiction to argue that a drug-induced fog kept him from paying his taxes, complicating the department’s ability to prove that he acted with intent to violate the law. And some suggested that even a misdemeanor was serious—for Hunter Biden or anyone else.​

​

“Any suggestion that a conviction for federal tax crimes is a slap on the wrist demonstrates an uninformed view of our federal criminal justice system, the U.S. sentencing guidelines, and the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction,” including reputational and professional damages, said Caroline Ciraolo, a former acting head of the Justice Department’s tax division.​

Did Hunter Biden Get a Sweetheart Deal? Prosecutors Weigh In

A look at whether the Justice Department’s agreement with the president’s son is the same as it would have been for anyone else.

www.wsj.com

So it appears that Hunter got a fair deal on tax evasion but there's an open question on gun charges in today's increase in gun violence.

But MAGA won't hear that because it's too profitable for their media bubble echo chamber that Da Derp State got away with it again. Because that's not what drives clicks and viewership! Outrage, hatred and grievance is what makes bank!

Toto Toto Toto,

You lead with a lie then add some truth n stuff..sad.

The Saudis did NOT GIVE Kushner $2 billion. They entrusted him to invest it for them. You know, like a personal broker?


Derp!

 

[konradv]

Toto Toto Toto,

You lead with a lie then add some truth n stuff..sad.

The Saudis did NOT GIVE Kushner $2 billion. They entrusted him to invest it for them. You know, like a personal broker?


Derp!

Personal brokers don’t charge fees? I think we have aright to know how much, considering he got security clearance from the Trump administration. BTW, has anyone checked his sock drawer?

 

[The Duke]

Personal brokers don’t charge fees? I think we have aright to know how much, considering he got security clearance from the Trump administration. BTW, has anyone checked his sock drawer?

I'm sure he gets a percentage of any profits made, so-?

 

[konradv]

I'm sure he gets a percentage of any profits made, so-?

Just profits? No “finders fee”? That doesn’t seem very Trumpian!

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

The sentence was just.

Trump Devotion Syndrome affects all of Trump's goofy supporters.