Washington:

A judge on Monday denied a bid by U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, to dismiss a federal tax evasion case brought against him in California.

Hunter Biden was convicted in Delaware in June for lying about his illegal drug use to buy a gun, and is scheduled to go to trial in September in the tax evasion case.

Biden, who has pleaded not guilty to the tax charges, had argued that David Weiss, the special counsel leading both prosecutions, was illegally appointed.

The president’s son had relied on a federal judge’s decision dismissing a criminal case accusing former President Donald Trump of illegally retaining classified documents after leaving office.

Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon found the appointment of the special counsel in that case, Jack Smith, violated the U.S. Constitution because Congress had not given him the authority to pursue the case. Smith’s office is appealing.

But U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi in Los Angeles said on Monday there was no valid basis to reconsider a prior order denying Hunter Biden’s bid to throw out the tax evasion indictment.

“The court declines to reach the merits of the motion because there is no valid basis for reconsideration of the court’s order denying Mr. Biden’s motion to dismiss,” the judge wrote.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

House Republicans have released their initial impeachment inquiry report into President Joe Biden, alleging an abuse of power and obstruction of justice in the financial dealings of his son Hunter Biden and family associates.

The nearly yearlong inquiry by Republicans stops short of alleging any criminal wrongdoing by the President. Instead, the almost 300-page report out Monday (August 19, 2024) ahead of the Democratic National Convention covers familiar ground, asserting the Biden family traded on its “brand” in business ventures in corrupt ways that rise to the Constitution’s high bar for impeachment.

With Mr. Biden no longer running for reelection, next steps are highly uncertain.

House Republicans have not had support from their own ranks to actually impeach the President, and removal by the Senate is even further afield. Many Republicans prefer to focus attention on the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, with some probes getting underway.

The White House has dismissed the House impeachment inquiry as a “stunt” and encouraged House Republicans to “move on.” “The totality of the corrupt conduct uncovered by the Committees is egregious,” wrote the House Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary and Ways and Means panels leading the inquiry.

The report said the Constitution’s “remedy for a President’s flagrant abuse of office is clear: impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal by the Senate.” Republicans have spent the better part of their time in the House majority with a hyper focus on Mr. Biden and his family’s businesses, encouraged by Donald Trump as the twice impeached and indicted former President makes a comeback bid for the White House.

The impeachment inquiry has been a cornerstone of the House GOP’s effort, launched by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy shortly before he was booted from leadership and formalized in December under new Speaker Mike Johnson. Republicans are investigating many aspects of Biden family finances going back to 2009 when he was vice president to Barack Obama.

Through bank records, interviews from some 30 witnesses, whistleblower accounts and millions of documents, House Republicans allege a years-long practice by Hunter Biden and his associates to solicit foreign business deals using the family’s proximity to power in Washington.

Much of the focus of the report is not on Biden’s time as president, but on the years when the Biden family was in turmoil after the 2015 death of his oldest son, Beau, and as the vice president was bowing out of elected office, declining to run for President in 2016.

Hunter Biden has acknowledged a serious addiction to crack in these years. He was convicted in June of felony gun charges and is set to stand trial next month on federal tax charges.

Former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer, who was sentenced to a year in prison in 2022 in another matter, told the committee, “At the end of the day, part of what was delivered is the brand.” To tie the elder Biden to his son’s actions, the Republicans rely on a series of phone calls and pop-by dinner meeting visits Joe Biden made while Hunter was conducting business. At times, Hunter would put his dad on speakerphone for his guests as the father and son exchanged pleasantries.

The Bidens are a famously tight-knit family and acknowledge they speak almost daily, including during this time, with the father checking on his son’s well-being.

In his own defiant closed-door deposition to House investigators, Hunter Biden insisted he did not involve his father in his business.

All told, the House Republicans allege the Biden family and its associates received some USD 27 million in business payments from partners or clients in Russia, China and other countries. They allege another USD 8 million in loans, including some from Hunter Biden benefactor Kevin Morris, a Hollywood attorney, and question the purchases of the son’s artwork.

The report said it is “inconceivable” that President Biden did not understand what was going on.

“President Biden participated in a conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family,” the report claims.

Mr. Biden himself declined a request to testify before the House.

Touchbacks to Trump’s impeachments at the hands of Democrats run throughout the report’s pages as Republicans work to contrast his grounds for removal to Biden family’s dealings and “grift.” But the differences are stark, as the indicted Trump faces actual criminal charges, including in the conspiracy to overturn Biden’s 2020 election and draw supporters to Washington on the day of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

The report also accuses Biden of obstructing justice in the probe, revisiting previously aired complaints about the Justice Department’s handling of investigation into Hunter Biden. Attorney General Merrick Garland has forcefully denied those accusations, defending the department against claims of political influence.

It focuses heavily on what Republicans have long alleged was a pattern of “slow-walking” investigative steps and delaying enforcement actions to the benefit of the president’s son.

But the report provides no evidence that Biden had any involvement in his son’s investigation, which was launched under Trump’s presidency and has been led by a Delaware US attorney appointed by Trump. The US attorney, David Weiss, was kept on by Garland to insulate the probe from claims of political interference.

Garland has insisted that no one at the White House gave him or other senior officials at the Justice Department direction about the handling of the Hunter Biden investigation.

Beyond Hunter Biden, the report includes details of the involvement of Joe Biden’s brother, James, in the various family businesses.

Republicans have pointed to a series of payments that they claim show the president benefited from his brother’s work. They point to a USD 2,00,000 personal check from James Biden to Joe Biden on the same day in 2018 that James Biden received an equal amount from Americore, a healthcare company.

House Democrats have defended the transaction, pointing to bank records they say indicate James Biden was repaying a loan provided by his brother, who had wire transferred USD 2,00,000 to him about six weeks earlier. The money changed hands while Joe Biden was a private citizen.

Short of impeaching Biden, the House Republicans have issued criminal referrals recommending the Justice Department prosecute Hunter Biden and James Biden, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of the GOP investigation.

Attorneys for those men have argued those claims are baseless or a distraction.

Until recently, the president had been a focal point for Republicans in Congress, but his decision last month to drop out of the presidential race and Harris’ ascent to the top of the ticket have forced GOP leaders to reevaluate their marquee investigation.

A year ago, GOP lawmakers had hoped the Biden inquiry would build a strong enough case for impeachment’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But the longer the inquiry dragged and the little direct evidence against Biden investigators were able to produce in public hearings or even in closed-door sessions, the more concerns grew from moderate Republicans wary of a vote on the matter.

The report released Monday makes more than 20 mentions of the “Biden-Harris administration,” while previous releases from the committees investigating Biden typically only made direct references to him.

And while Harris is not mentioned on her own in the report, the same committees leading the inquiry have begun to open new probes into her and her vice presidential pick, Tim Walz.

Washington:

US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter will plead not guilty to charges of illegally buying a gun when he was using drugs, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Hunter Biden, 53, was charged last week with two counts of making false statements when claiming on forms required for a 2018 gun purchase that he was not using drugs illegally at the time.

On Tuesday, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe David Lowell, asked the judge presiding over the case in the eastern state of Delaware to hold the first court appearance by video conference instead of requiring his client to attend in person.

Hunter Biden currently lives in California.

“Mr. Biden understands both the charges against him and his rights… and we believe the Court can be assured of that fact by conducting this initial appearance by video,” Lowell said in the letter to US Magistrate Judge Christopher Burke.

“Mr. Biden also will enter a plea of not guilty, and there is no reason why he cannot utter those two words by video conference,” Lowell said.

“Mr. Biden is not seeking any special treatment in making this request,” he added. “He has attended and will attend any proceedings in which his physical appearance is required.”

Hunter Biden is also facing a third charge, based on the same statements, that he illegally possessed the gun during an 11-day period in October 2018.

If convicted on all three felony charges, he could face 25 years in prison, though in practice the offenses are seldom punished by any jail time.

The indictment came two days after Republicans in Congress opened an impeachment probe against Joe Biden, a Democrat, alleging that when the elder Biden was vice president he benefited financially from his son’s foreign business dealings.

They alleged, without offering hard evidence, that while vice president in 2015-2016, Biden intervened to protect an allegedly corrupt Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, where Hunter Biden sat on the board.

The gun charges against Hunter Biden were filed by Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, who has been investigating him since 2018 over various allegations, mostly related to his overseas business deals.

A plea deal between Hunter Biden and Weiss, covering the gun charge as well as alleged tax violations, collapsed two months ago.

Hunter Biden is a Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist, but his life has been marred by alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction and his indictment has cast a shadow over his father’s campaign for reelection next year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Reacting to the indictment of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called it a “fig leaf” designed to divert attention.

He also stated that the impeachment inquiry that has been started against the President by the House is a “step in the right direction”.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Mr Ramaswamy said, “Today’s indictment of Hunter Biden is a smokescreen. Don’t fall for it. This is a fig leaf designed to deflect attention away from the real problem: the Biden family is selling out US foreign policy for their own family’s private financial gain”.

“That’s really what’s wrong, and we must hold politicians in both major political parties when they use our foreign policy to enrich their family members,” he added.

He further said that it is no accident that Hunter’s indictment comes when President Biden’s own popularity within the Democratic Party is “cratering”.

“The impeachment inquiry initiated by the House against President Biden is a step in the right direction, but the public shouldn’t fall for the trick of diverting attention away from the true problem. It’s also no accident that today’s indictment comes at a moment when President Biden’s own popularity within the Democratic Party is cratering. I predict this is the first step for the Democrat Party managerial class to pressure Joe Biden out of the race. Biden will become a sacrificial pawn in service to the deep state that wants to keep power at all costs,” Mr Ramaswamy further said.

President Biden’s son Hunter Biden was indicted on Thursday on three counts of illegally possessing a firearm while being addicted to drugs, reported the New York Post.

The charges against Hunter can carry up to 25 years in prison and could further form the first of multiple criminal cases. Hunter, who is 53, may also face tax fraud and illegal foreign lobbying counts in DC and Los Angeles, according to the New York Post.

He was also accused of lying about his drug use on a gun purchase form in 2018 when he bought a Colt Cobra revolver.

Meanwhile, Speaker Kevin McCarthy authorised House committees on Tuesday to launch a formal impeachment probe on US President Joe Biden based on the House GOP’s investigations into his family’s foreign business ties and the prosecution of his son Hunter Biden, The Hill reported.

McCarthy stated that the investigation will be overseen by House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky), in collaboration with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo).

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. File
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was indicted on Thursday for illegally buying a gun five years ago at a time when he admits he was using drugs heavily.

Mr. Hunter Biden was charged with two counts of making false statements, for claiming on forms that he was not using drugs illegally at the time he bought a Colt revolver in Delaware.

A third charge said that, based on the false statements, he illegally possessed the gun — a charge that can bring up to 10 years in prison.

The charges were filed by Justice Department Special Counsel David Weiss, who has been investigating Mr. Hunter Biden since 2018.

It came two months after a plea deal between Mr. Hunter Biden and Mr. Weiss, covering the gun charge as well as alleged tax violations, went sour over differences of whether the President’s son could face unspecified additional charges.

In the July deal, Mr. Hunter Biden agreed to plea guilty to two minor tax charges.

In exchange he was offered probation, as he had already paid what he owed the government along with penalties.

In the same deal, Mr. Weiss agreed to suspend the felony gun charge if Mr. Hunter Biden completed “pretrial diversion,” which often involves counseling or rehabilitation.

But in a dramatic July 26 hearing, the deal collapsed over the issue of whether Mr. Hunter Biden would have been immune from any other charges also investigated by Mr. Weiss, including possible crimes related to his business dealings in Ukraine, China and elsewhere.

The judge mentioned the possibility that Mr. Biden could be charged as having acted as a lobbyist for foreign governments without registering with the Justice Department.

Three weeks later, after the deal collapsed, Mr. Weiss dropped the tax charges and indicated in a court filing that new charges would be brought in other states.

And he told the Deleware court that an indictment on the gun charge would come by the end of September.

The legal troubles of Mr. Hunter Biden, 53, a Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist, have cast a shadow over his father’s reelection campaign.

Without offering any evidence, Republicans have accused Mr. Joe Biden’s Justice Department of protecting his son and have accused Mr. Weiss, a Republican appointee, of going easy on Mr. Hunter Biden.

Washington:

If US President Joe Biden has ever worried about the effect his son Hunter’s troubles could have on his 2024 re-election bid, he’s never shown it. Hunter Biden’s history of controversial business deals, drugs and women has long made him a target for the elder Biden’s Republican enemies.

That culminated in the opening of a House impeachment inquiry against the president on Tuesday.

But if some see Hunter as the black sheep of America’s first family, the 80-year-old Joe Biden has resolutely stood by his sole surviving son, against a backdrop of tragedy.

“My son’s done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him,” Biden said in an interview earlier this year about tax and gun charges against the 53-year-old Hunter.

Asked how Hunter’s problems could affect his presidency, Biden replied: “It impacts my presidency by making me proud of him.”

Yet while Biden’s love has been unwavering, Hunter’s woes show no sign of fading.

In fact, the impeachment probe looking at whether Biden lied about his son’s business deals in Ukraine and China threaten to create a bigger headache than ever for the White House ahead of next year’s election.

‘Lost hope’

The Bidens’ bond was forged through terrible loss.

A car crash in 1972 killed Hunter’s mother Neilia and baby sister Naomi, left two-year-old Hunter with a fractured skull and his older brother Beau with multiple broken bones.

“The pain had seemed unbearable in the beginning,” Joe Biden wrote in his 2017 memoir “Promise Me, Dad.”

He was sworn in as a newly-elected senator by Hunter and Beau’s hospital bedside and it was just the three of them until he met his second wife, Jill.

“They’d always been there for each other, from the time they were little boys,” Biden wrote.

Yet Hunter also lived in the shadow of Beau, who had a sterling military career and went into politics, with Biden imagining Beau might one day be president.

A graduate of Yale law school, Hunter drifted between jobs in government, banking and lobbying before landing in a family-controlled hedge fund and his own international business consultancy in the late 2000s.

His life became increasingly marred by alcoholism and addiction to crack cocaine. In 2014 he was discharged from the Navy Reserve after a positive test for cocaine.

Things worsened drastically after his brother died from brain cancer in 2015, aged 46.

“After Beau died, I never felt more alone. I lost hope,” he wrote in his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things.”

His marriage crumbled and he lost custody of his three daughters. His ex-wife Kathleen Buhle said in her memoir his addictions spiraled and he racked up bills for strip clubs and liquor stores.

Hunter then had an affair with Beau’s widow and had a daughter with a woman in Arkansas whom Joe Biden only recently publicly acknowledged as his seventh grandchild.

Then he saw his files, emails and lurid photos from his laptop computer made public by his father’s enemies, as they alleged a toxic brew of nepotism between Joe Biden and his son.

‘Wholly unavoidable’

Despite all that, the teetotal Joe Biden has always defended Hunter.

“My son, like a lot of people… had a drug problem,” Biden said when Donald Trump raised Hunter’s drug use and business deals during a TV debate in the 2020 presidential race.

Hunter said he’d been clean since 2019 following an intervention by his second wife Melissa — with whom he had a son, Beau — and his father.

“He never abandoned me, never shunned me, never judged me, no matter how bad things got,” Hunter wrote.

“There were times when his persistence infuriated me — I’d attempt to fade to black through alcoholism or drug addiction, and then there he was, barging in again with his lantern, shining a light, disrupting my plans to disappear,” he said.

He took up painting — though that brought fresh controversy when unnamed collectors bought his works for prices in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Biden has kept his son close this year, taking him to Ireland in April and hosting him on the White House balcony for Independence Day celebrations.

But the New York Times last week quoted unidentified Biden allies as saying that doing so “has resulted in wholly avoidable political distractions.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter will be charged before the end of September with a federal firearm offense after his plea deal went sour, the prosecutor said Wednesday in a court filing.

Special Counsel David Weiss, who has investigated the president’s son for five years, said a grand jury would issue its indictment in the case before September 29.

According to the original Weiss charges filed in June, Biden failed to file his tax returns on time on earnings of more than $1.5 million for 2017 and 2018.

He also bought and kept a handgun for a few weeks in 2018 even though he had, as he has openly admitted, a serious drug problem.

In a deal reached with Weiss in late July, Biden agreed to plea guilty to two minor tax charges.

In exchange he was offered probation, as he had already paid what he owed the government along with penalties.

In the same deal, Weiss agreed to suspend the felony gun charge if Biden completed “pretrial diversion,” which often involves counseling or rehabilitation.

But in a dramatic July 26 hearing, the deal collapsed over the issue of whether Biden would have been immune from any other charges also investigated by Weiss, including possible crimes related to his business dealings in Ukraine, China and elsewhere.

The judge mentioned the possibility that Biden could be charged as having acted as a lobbyist for foreign governments without registering with the Justice Department.

Three weeks later, after the deal collapsed, Weiss dropped the tax charges and indicated in a court filing that new charges would be brought in other states.

And on Wednesday he told the Delaware court that Biden would be charged in the gun case, which could bring up to 10 years in prison.

The legal troubles of Biden, 53, a Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist, have cast a shadow over his father’s reelection campaign.

Without offering any evidence, Republicans have accused Biden’s Justice Department of protecting his son and have accused Weiss, a Republican appointee, of going easy on Hunter.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)