He went on to suggest his son was “treated differently” because of his father’s status.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unravelled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”
Even the damn judge couldn’t swallow the deal. Because it tried to contain a resolution of everything he could possibly be charged with, ever, for anything up to that date. A plea deal that had just covered roughly and approximately the things alleged and things connected would almost cerrtainly have sailed through. But everything? Nahh……
A resolution of everything drugs, guns, taxes and tarts could have been achieved. One that covered all of Burisma – whether or not there will be charges there etc – and Ukraine and China and….by dint of pleading guilty to drugs and guns and taxes? Nope.
I’ve been reading this story this morning with sad incredulity.
This is Banana Republic behaviour. If it was Trump it would have led to his impeachment.
As Brandon obviously does not give a monkey’s for his reputation, we can expect something even worse to happen before Jan 20.
Hunter has been pardoned for the millions of dollars in Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian bribes he took on behalf of his father, which apparently means that he cannot cite the Fifth Amendment if called to testify before Congress or elsewhere about his business dealings with Ukraine and China because there’s no risk of criminal jeopardy.
Interesting. If he lies there that is a novel criminal offence.
(Given how creative the DOJ has been lately, I wonder if they might not seize assets and ask him to sue for their return, or construct some legal theory that the continued enjoyment of that money creates a new offence every time he uses it.)
And what about the other eight (?) family members who received the money?
Not to mention the Metabiota/Rosemont Seneca biolabs in Ukraine that are already known about but somehow not of interest (hitherto) to the DOJ or most of the media.
Otto – we can expect something even worse to happen before Jan 20.
Well, they’ve already brought back ISIS for a surprise new season.
Now that he has immunity to prosecution, he cannot plead the Fifth Amendment (self incrimination) and should be an interesting witness when the law focuses upon the crimes of those around him
Sort of what Otto says…
Upon coming across it this night I was thinking: “They couldn’t possibly this blatantly stu…. Gods, they actually are.. ”
Of course.. My conspirationist mind immediately started calculating the life expectancy of Brandon-dear..
Defenestration is non US-ian.. Maybe coke “accidentally” laced with fentanyl? Definitely High Life Hollywood, that..
dammit… Hunter… those Bidens are as interchangeable as they are stupid..
The BBC are basically covering this as “Biden did something dodgy, but Trump started it, and did it worse. Republicans criticised Biden, but they haven’t got room to talk, have they?”
@Grikath
They both had better steer well clear of Arkansas…….
Yeah, but Two Tier Justice is high fashion now. And it’s longer skirts for the winter season, no?
It’s interesting that the Telegraph piece Tim links to (like the Times report) only talks about the (2018) firearms offence and (minor) tax offences and makes no reference to Joe pardoning Hunter for any possible crimes he may have committed since Jan 1 2014.
Hunter was appointed business associate to the (Ukrainian oil company) Burisma board of directors in April that year.
Here’s a useful timeline https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/
But the idea that this has anything to do with fraud and graft and the Ukrainian war and US policy is all just a conspiracy theory.
Attention Citizen! There is no Deep State! Attention!
Interested – Maybe Hunter Biden is an expert on the Eastern European hydrocarbon industry, as well as being a successful painter and a crackhead.
Interested said:
“… no reference to Joe pardoning Hunter for any possible crimes he may have committed since Jan 1 2014”
Is that even valid? I thought you could only be pardoned for crimes you’d been convicted of.
Hmm, seems I was probably wrong; apparently Ford pardoned Nixon for things that he hadn’t been prosecuted for.
The validity hasn’t been tested in court, but general legal opinion seems to be that conviction isn’t necessary, the only time restriction being that the offence must have been committed before the pardon.
The CIA’s take, from “Radio Free Europe”:
Russia’s top investigative body said it had opened a probe into a Ukrainian company that formerly had ties to the son of U.S. President Joe Biden, in what likely is an effort to spread disinformation in the midst of the heated U.S. presidential election campaign.
Disinformation, eh?
The Investigative Committee said on April 9 that it was launching its investigation into Burisma Holdings and its alleged involvement in the financing of terrorist activities in Russia by “senior officials of the United States and NATO countries.” The committee said several Russian lawmakers had requested the probe.
No, I’m sure everything Burisma does is completely above board, lol.
Burisma Holdings is a Ukrainian oil and gas company whose board of directors included Hunter Biden between 2014 and 2019.
The company has been at the center of unproven allegations for years by Republican lawmakers in the United States and others, who have claimed that then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian officials to fire Ukraine’s prosecutor-general as a way to protect Burisma’s principal owner.
The allegations have been repeatedly debunked, and outright refuted by some of the shady U.S. businessman who played a key role in spreading the original claims.
These are just crazy ALLEGATIONS, which is why Joe Biden just issued a blanket 10 year pardon to his son, covering all crimes including murder and treason.
Richard – but general legal opinion seems to be that conviction isn’t necessary, the only time restriction being that the offence must have been committed before the pardon.
The Democrats just spent a billion dollars calling Trump a Nazi.
Thankfully, as we know, Hitler was scrupulously law abiding and respectful of decisions made by the Weimar government.
I have some respect for Hunter, between 2014 and 2019 he was a crackhead alcoholic, shagging his dead brothers wife, numerous hookers all across the States, illegally buying guns, forgotten a very incriminating lap top in pawn shop…
Yet he STILL managed to act on the board of a Ukrainian oil firm? What a man…
– Even the damn judge couldn’t swallow the deal. Because it tried to contain a resolution of everything he could possibly be charged with, ever, for anything up to that date.
Not quite. She asked whether the plea deal covered broader issues (such as violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act) and in so doing brought about a disagreement between the parties over whether it did. The parties then renegotiated in recess and subsequently the defense agreed that the deal only covered the gun charge, tax issues, and drug use. After that the wider immunity was off the table.
The judge’s specific objection was that the deal placed the court in the process of deciding if charges should be brought against H. Biden if he broke the terms of the deal; a potential Constitutional separation of powers violation. She invited the parties to try again with a deal that didn’t involve the court and adjourned the hearing. In the end the prosecution decided to indict.
– If it was Trump it would have led to his impeachment.
Not now; the Supreme Court has ruled (in favour of Trump) that a President cannot be prosecuted for Presidential actions. No doubt something President Biden’s Handlers will have noted.
PJF – impeachment and prosecution are two different things. Neither of the impeachments of President Trump were for criminal activities.
” . . . which apparently means that he cannot cite the Fifth Amendment . . .”
That would be a logical argument, not a legal one. Any legal argument would probably be interesting enough to get to the Supreme Court.
– impeachment and prosecution are two different things.
Good point, I think. Trump himself tried to argue that a President could only be criminally prosecuted for something if he’d been impeached and convicted of it beforehand (but the Supremes threw that out, so dunno).
– Neither of the impeachments of President Trump were for criminal activities.
Of course they were; a President can only be impeached for treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. Abuse of power, obstruction of Congress and incitement to insurrection are all crimes. He cannot be impeached just for being orange.
PJF – the first impeachment was on the supposed grounds of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress”. That implies allegations of unlawful behaviour, but not necessarily criminal (tho Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor).
The second impeachment was on the laughable grounds of incitement of insurrection. Impeachment itself is supposed to be a quasi-criminal process meant to restrain public office holders from unlawful, illegal or abusive behaviour, but nb also that it requires no prior finding of guilt in an actual court or any standard of evidence, and therefore is in practice just another political Who/Whom game now.
It’s all so tiresome. But NB that the coup we had in Britain in 2022 where the political class got together to exclude voters from having any influence over government policy was directly downstream of the anti-Trump fuckery in America.
If we want to be a nation of laws, we have to get rid of all the lawyers. Quite a puzzle.
As Brandon obviously does not give a monkey’s for his reputation, we can expect something even worse to happen before Jan 20.
Stepping aside in favour of President Kameltoe?
@Steve
The second impeachment was on the laughable grounds of incitement of insurrection.
You’re probably aware, Steve, but others may not be, that the laughable ‘J6 Committee’ took exculpatory evidence from Kash Patel – that Trump has authorised the deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops, having also asked his followers to protest peacefully, if at all – and then suppressed it, and members of the committee lied repeatedly about doing so.
It’s going to be amusing if Patel makes it through the nomination process to be next head of the FBI 🙂
https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/12/j6-committees-suppressed-evidence-scandal-exonerates-trump-from-insurrection-narrative/
Tell me, what happened to the xenophobic, racist, Nazi Trump? He keeps appointing brown or swarthy people to senior posts. It’s a puzzle. At least he’s still a misogynist, eh? No women in senior posts; well, except ….
@dearieme
I think you misspelled ‘coconuts’ and ‘prostitutes’.
Back to Hunter, the inimitable Ace of Spades and via him the inimitable Scott Jennings.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/412626.php
I do wonder whether the Dems are properly fucked, and what that means for their handlers behind the scenes. I’m sure they have seven ways from Sunday to get around the issue.
Here’s a thing that popped up in my mind…
So the Biden Nepotism is a fact, unless there’s a way to overturn such a decree. IANAL and all.
But in the course of all the legal bruhaha, a lot of evidence must have been gathered regarding Hunter and his charming ways, which now are “useless”, cuz he has a parchment that says he din’t do it, even if he did.
Since all that evidence is now inadmissible in Court, it should be destroyed afaik.
What are the odds of The System being ..unusually efficient… in making that happen in this case?
And what would that say about the nature of the evidence if that were the case?
Any US-ians who can give a rough idea?
Interested – You’re probably aware, Steve, but others may not be, that the laughable ‘J6 Committee’ took exculpatory evidence from Kash Patel – that Trump has authorised the deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops, having also asked his followers to protest peacefully, if at all – and then suppressed it, and members of the committee lied repeatedly about doing so
I hadn’t heard of Patel until recently (the insane amount of bald-faced lies told by the press including the BBC about the whole thing made me skip most of the coverage) but he looks like a winner to me. His jib has a damn fine cut, I reckon.
One of several weird things about the “insurrection” is how, after the federal government agent provocateurs completely failed in their goal of provoking political violence (minor property damage, a few isolated scuffles and an unauthorised tour of the Capitol where the “violent protestors” politely stayed behind the velvet rope isn’t an insurrection and is barely even a kerfuffle), they stuck to the original script.
Jan 6th was part Fathers 4 Justice type stunt gone wrong, part that time the Metropolitan Police decided to beat the shit out of the Countryside Alliance, part Benny Hill farce. If it was a film, Trump would be played by Chris Farley. But it was covered like it was the Holocaust or something.
That created the bizarre “two movies” scenario where people who were filmed behaving significantly better than the George Floyd fan club only five months prior were continually described, in the solemnly outraged tones TV news presstitutes feign when they’re about to lie even more brazenly than usual, as if they were a vicious pack of Nazi terrorists who very nearly ended American Democracy™! Until they were courageously stopped by an heroic policeman who bravely shot an unarmed woman in the face.
The entire Shitlib Extended Universe was trying to force-meme into collective agreement that Orange Badman is a dangerous criminal and the (fiery, but mostly peaceful) events of Jan 6th the Darkest Day in US History, Like, Ever, Scoob! They were straining their pointy little heads like those blokes from Scanners, going “na na na na na NA NA!”, trying to make Americans ignore their own lying eyes and believe the narrative instead. With menaces attached, every single one of Trump’s close friends suddenly became a target for armed FBI raids in 2020. What’s insane is how our Pravda-like press suppresses information on how blatantly the US federal and certain state governments made up laws, stacked courts, weaponised law enforcement officers for political ends and even committed serious crimes in multiple attempts to destroy Donald Trump.
Apparently those are only bad things when Russians or possibly the Chinese do it.
Turns out you can’t gaslight all the people all the time. The Dems spent over a billion dollars trying to make voters think Trump is the greatest ever threat to American democracy, and American voters gave him the popular vote. Record swings from Hispanics (we love Hispanics!), black men (John Bercow’s wife lov-never mind), and young first time voters (we love Gen Z! Fr fr no cap). The reason the liberal meltdowns are relatively muted this time is that The Diverse Future just broke decisively for Trump. They are literally stunned. As future historians will say: “lol!”
Dm – it’s amazing how many brown white supremacists there are, intit. Also, Trump has 37 felonies and a ton of kids by women all over town, so Donald “Many Men” Trump is officially the real OG First Black Man President. (But don’t worry, Obama can still be the first gay president)
Grikath – I’m guessing the main purpose of the Hunter pardon is not to help Hunter. It’s to keep Hunter’s immediate relatives and powerful DC associates out of prison. Hunter Biden knows a lot of dirt about a lot of other dirtbags, and he’s a rich white man who doesn’t want to go to federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison. He’d be an excellent star witness for the prosecution. But now free as a bird and under no compulsion to cooperate with any investigation, natch. Just shows you how innocent he is.
But remember – Hunter Biden has sold $1.5m worth of his paintings. He is officially one of the most commercially successful new artists we’ve seen since Andy Warhol. No doubt art schools in future will teach Hunterism.
Steve,
Very perceptive analysis of our “insurrection “. Especially from someone that doesn’t live here. You must follow a number of American blogs and substacks.