Flashing a million-dollar’s worth of white-capped teeth, Hunter Biden was in the spotlight on Thursday at a White House state dinner rubbing shoulders with top politicians and public figures.
This inclusion with the high and mighty of the world was the proverbial killing of the fatted calf for the prodigal son of the president, following a string of charges against Hunter Biden that include two federal counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and a felony weapons charge.
His appearance at the state dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came a day after a plea deal was made with federal prosecutors for the charges. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was also present at the event.
Hunter Biden’s appearance at such a high-profile event, despite his ongoing legal woes, highlights the persistence of the dichotomy in the public life of those who are closely linked with this president.
On the same day, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against the appeal of an Illinois man who had been given a 27-year prison sentence for violating a federal gun law that prohibits felons from having possession of a firearm.
Marcus DeAngelo Jones, a black man, had argued that he did not know about the federal law and that his conviction should be thrown out following a 2019 court decision that said prosecutors must prove that people charged with a federal gun crime knew they were not allowed to have a firearm.
Hunter Biden, who is now notorious for influence peddling schemes worth millions of dollars and involving Ukrainian oligarchs when his father was Vice President, has agreed to plead guilty to the tax charges.
But he will be placed in a pretrial diversion arrangement on the gun charge. A documented drug user, he was not allowed to have a firearm, since he was illegally using controlled substances. The hearing for the plea agreement is set for July 26, in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika.
The timing of Hunter Biden’s public appearance at the same event as the president and the nation’s top law officer prior to a judge’s approval of his plea deal raised eyebrows.
Hours before the dinner, Republicans revealed testimony from two government whistleblowers alleging that interference by the Department of Justice, FBI, and Internal Revenue Service compromised the Hunter Biden investigation.
IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley Jr.’s testimony in Congress indicated that the decision whether to execute a search warrant at President Biden’s Delaware home in relation to the Hunter Biden investigation was driven by the “optics.”
The White House has been pressed about the leniency of Hunter Biden’s plea deal, which spares him any prison time. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dodged the question posed by reporters on Friday. “I’m just not going to get into that.”
Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, cited the three-year sentence handed down to actor Wesley Snipes for tax evasion to underline the apparent discrepancy in punishment.
“The reported plea agreement extended to President Biden’s son is a farcical example of precisely that two-tiered approach to criminal justice by the DOJ under your leadership,” Scott wrote to Attorney General Garland. “What is the American public to take away from the outcome of this five-year investigation and leniency shown to Hunter Biden on both the federal tax violations and firearms offenses he committed?”
