“Most people who commit tax fraud go through their entire lives without anything happening. They don’t [get] audited, they don’t get caught, they don’t get prosecuted,” Beverly Moran, a Vanderbilt University professor and tax-law expert, said in an interview with the Associated Press. “But if they get prosecuted, they get convicted.”
These are grim tidings for the president. Despite his Justice Department’s best efforts, Joe Biden’s son Hunter will be prosecuted for his alleged tax-dodging. Indeed, based only on the publicly available information, the at least $1.4 million in taxes the president’s son failed to pay between 2016 and 2019 is an egregious case. No extenuating circumstances explain why Hunter Biden failed to pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars in income that instead went to fast women, luxury accommodations, flashy clothes, exotic cars, and illicit narcotics. The Bidens and their allies argue that Hunter cannot be held to account for his poor judgment because it was a product of his drug abuse, which is itself a lapse in judgment. That is a circular argument Hunter’s presiding judge is unlikely to find compelling.
Soon enough, the president will be faced with a variety of horrible choices, the least agonizing of which only involve the life or death of his political career. Biden is the one person in America with the power to spare his only surviving son the consequences of his actions. If it isn’t already, the temptation to pull that trigger will be overwhelming. But the consequences of doing so would be disastrous.
Hunter Biden’s misconduct and the extent to which it has tainted his father’s reputation is measurable. As of October, a majority of Americans told pollsters they believed the president was involved in his son’s business dealings with foreign entities despite Joe Biden’s denials. Those voters are unlikely to wall off in their minds the tax-fraud charges against Hunter Biden as some distinct enterprise of which his father had no knowledge. If Joe Biden lied before, they would reason, he’s probably lying now. Were Biden to pardon Hunter for his misdeed, it’s likely those voters would regard the president’s pardon as an act of complicity. He might as well have pardoned himself.
For that outcome to occur amid a House of Representatives impeachment inquiry would all but ensure that the inquiry becomes a formal impeachment vote — an eventuality that would seriously diminish Biden’s chances for reelection, according to the Wall Street Journal’s latest findings. But not pardoning Hunter entails its own political risks. Though it would surely be torture for Biden to have to preside as head of the executive branch over his own son’s prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment, it’s not clear that voters would look on the president’s inaction with sympathy. Joe Biden retailed himself in 2020 as a soft-glowing orb of pure empathy — the virtual personification of paternalistic compassion. Would voters feel Joe Biden’s pain, too? Or would they see his lethargy as callous indifference to his son’s ordeal, which is motivated only by the president’s effort to salvage his own political career?
It’s a fiendish problem — one the president and his allies are probably hoping they will never have to confront. Joe Biden surely hopes that Hunter will be lucky enough to draw a pliant jury or a lenient judge. Maybe the trail can be dragged out into 2025, at which point Joe Biden may have been retained in the White House. Perhaps the appeals process will be a torpid one. Perhaps Hunter will be lucky enough to avoid jail time altogether. Perhaps. Perhaps.
But hope is not a strategy, and the president is more likely than not to face an existential political crisis next year. The only sure way out of it would be for Joe Biden to declare that he is no longer seeking another term in the White House, thereby liberating himself and bequeathing to his Democratic successor all the consequences of whatever action he takes on his son’s behalf. One thing is sure: Hunter Biden has administered a slow-acting poison to his father’s political career. All that’s left for Joe Biden to do is to choose how its symptoms manifest.
Will Joe Biden Pardon Hunter?
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13.12.2023
“Most people who commit tax fraud go through their entire lives without anything happening. They don’t [get] audited, they don’t get caught, they don’t get prosecuted,” Beverly Moran, a Vanderbilt University professor and tax-law expert, said in an interview with the Associated Press. “But if they get prosecuted, they get convicted.”
These are grim tidings for the president. Despite his Justice Department’s best efforts, Joe Biden’s son Hunter will be prosecuted for his alleged tax-dodging. Indeed, based only on the publicly available information, the at least $1.4 million in taxes the president’s son failed to pay between 2016 and 2019 is an egregious case. No extenuating circumstances explain why Hunter Biden failed to pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars in income that instead went to fast women, luxury accommodations, flashy clothes, exotic cars, and illicit narcotics. The Bidens and their allies argue that Hunter cannot be held to account for his poor judgment because it was a product of his drug abuse,........
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