It’s political planets apart witnessing how hard the Department of "Justice" has worked to keep Joe Biden in office versus Banana Republic lawfare attempts to keep former U.S. President Donald J. Trump out.
Abundant evidence includes sweeping away son Hunter’s footprints on a more than questionable trail of foreign influence peddling paybacks along with potential related federal tax evasion linked directly to his dad.
A belated 56-page indictment filed on Dec. 7 by U.S. Special Counsel David Weiss charges Hunter with criminal citations that appear cherry picked to avoid obvious connections to Joe while providing legal cover to cop out on answering lots of tough questions awaiting him as a key subpoenaed witness in congressional closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight Committee who is leading the congressional probe into Hunter and President Biden, has accused Weiss of recently bringing the minimum possible charges to shield both father and son from potentially more damaging revelations.
Included in the latest filing are charges that the president’s son evaded $1.4 million in 2016-2019 federal taxes through failures to report income while also filing "false business deductions" and "willfully" ignoring tax obligations in preference of an “extravagant lifestyle."
A previous September Delaware federal court indictment charged Hunter with three felony gun charges.
These were among many criminal charges quietly planned to later be forgiven by a sweetheart plea deal until publicly exposed through sworn testimony by IRS whistleblowers under questioning by an honest judge.
As lead IRS investigator Gary Shapley told CBS reporter Jim Axelrod, "There were certain investigative steps we weren’t allowed to take that could have led us to President Biden."
The latest indictment incorporates sidelined recommendations that had previously been submitted by IRS investigators on the case in late 2021, which came to public light only after IRS whistleblowers Shapley and Joe Ziegler testified before Congress that the Justice Department, its Tax Division, and the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office "provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest."
Shapley also noted that his team found evidence of several illegal business expenses during the course of the investigation, and suggested the alleged crimes perpetrated by Hunter totaling $2.2 million of owed taxes likely would’ve quickly landed "any other person" in prison.
Nevertheless, DOJ political interference allowed the statute of limitations to lapse on Hunter’s 2014 and 2015 tax returns, which Shapley says contained the most egregious conduct, including a possible Foreign Agents Registration Act violation.
The House voted on Dec. 14 to authorize a Biden impeachment inquiry which will add legal leverage to subpoena witnesses and documents supporting suspicions of "high crimes and misdemeanors," which can constitutionally lead to Joe’s removal from office upon Senate conviction.
Following this action, the House formally subpoenaed Hunter to testify before closed-door hearings through standard procedures normally applied to all key witnesses.
There was nothing normal, however, regarding Hunter’s defiance of the subpoena and demand for a public hearing prior to submission to legal testimony before House Oversight and Judiciary committees.
Entirely ignoring the pending deposition scheduled to take place on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m., Hunter instead staged a theatrical appearance on Capitol Hill, blasting and blaming "MAGA" Republicans who have "invaded" his privacy, "attacked" his family, and "ridiculed my struggle with addiction."
Hunter added that "my father was not financially involved in my business," saying he was not involved in his dealings with Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, or his Chinese investments and others in the U.S.
Whereas the White House and President Biden have maintained that the president was "never in business" with his son, recall that Joe has also repeatedly said he has never even spoken to his son about his business dealings.
Such denials are contradicted by mountains of evidence including email and bank records corroborated by sworn testimony from Hunter Biden's former business partners.
Despite contrary evidence on Hunter’s laptop, published photographs, and witness accounts, Joe Biden has denounced as "lies" reports that he met while vice president with Hunter and brother Jim Biden’s Chinese, Kazakhstani, Mexican, Russian and Ukrainian associates on numerous occasions.
A recently released June 2018 email to a bank executive from an internal investigator who identified Hunter as a high risk "politically exposed person" (PEP) was specifically concerned with the description of a $5 million deposit in August 2017 from Northern International Capital Holdings, a company affiliated with Chinese-government-linked energy firm CEFC.
The investigator notes the money was listed as a "business loan," yet "there was no loan agreement document submitted."
Up to that time, 16 wire transfers totaling more than $2.9 million were indicated to be management fees and reimbursements without identifying what services were rendered.
Bank records obtained by the House Oversight Committee, show that at least $40,000 of that $5 million quickly ended up in a Joe Biden bank account — via his brother James, who recorded it as a loan repayment.
And why, after all, with no evident business services, would the Biden family and associates need more than 20 shell companies who reportedly raked in over $24 million dollars between 2015 and 2019 by selling Joe Biden as "the brand?"
Meanwhile, failure to respond to an order to testify before House investigatory committees will most certainly trigger criminal Contempt of Congress charges against Hunter, which will unfortunately go to "the Department of Injustice" to be stonewalled or pardoned by President Biden before he leaves office by impeachment or wisdom of the 2024 electorate.
In either case, let’s at least wish grateful good riddance to both of them.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.