The U.S. attorney for Delaware is nearing a decision about whether to prosecute Hunter Biden, The New York Times reported.
U.S. Attorney David C. Weiss and his team have been probing the first son’s overseas business dealings, and interactions between Hunter Biden’s business associates and President Joe Biden before he won the nation’s highest office, the Times reported.
However, people familiar with the investigation told the Times that Weiss’ focus appears to concern Hunter Biden’s taxes.
The newspaper said possible charges stem from Hunter Biden’s failure to meet filing deadlines for his 2016 and 2017 returns, and possibly $30,000 in false deductions for business expenses.
Weiss, who was nominated to his position by former President Donald Trump, also is said to be considering charging Hunter Biden with lying on a U.S. government form filled out to purchase a handgun in 2018. The gun later was found in a trash can.
Hunter Biden, when filling out the form, said he was not using drugs. That assertion, the Times said, is one “that prosecutors might be able to challenge based on his erratic behavior and possible witness accounts of his drug use around that period.”
Whether or not Weiss charges Hunter Biden with improprieties in his business dealings likely will not stop Republicans’ claims that the first son exploited his father’s position as then-vice president, and accusations that Joe Biden benefited financially from Hunter Biden’s dealings in China and Ukraine.
New House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., on Wednesday demanded the Treasury Department release all suspicious activity reports generated by banks linked to Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings include a role on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. He accepted the position when Joe Biden was vice president under President Barack Obama and overseeing administration policy in Ukraine.
Burisma was led by an oligarch who at the time was under investigation for corruption, the Times reported.
Hunter Biden also had an equity stake in a Chinese business venture, and a failed joint venture with a Chinese tycoon “who had courted well-connected Americans in both parties — at one point, he gave Hunter Biden a large diamond as a gift — but was later detained by Chinese authorities,” the Times reported.
Concerning taxes, Hunter Biden failed to file his 2016 and 2017 returns. His accountants estimated that he owed about $2 million in back taxes.
The Times said that Hunter Biden, in October 2001, borrowed $2 million from a wealthy Los Angeles lawyer and paid the IRS the full amount that his accountants estimated he owed in taxes.
In September, an Obama-appointed federal judge denied a request for the public disclosure of records regarding Hunter Biden’s gun that allegedly was thrown into a trash can in 2018.
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