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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   33056 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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In an interesting development in US politics, Hunter Biden has apparently reached an agreement with the Justice Department that will allow him to avoid felony firearms and tax charges in exchange for pleading guilty to two misdemeanors.

Hunter Biden Reaches Deal to Plead Guilty to Misdemeanor Tax Charges

Hunter Biden agreed with the Justice Department on Tuesday to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and accept terms that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a separate gun charge, a big step toward ending a long-running and politically explosive investigation into the finances, drug use and international business dealings of President Biden’s troubled son.

Under a deal hashed out with a federal prosecutor who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Biden agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his 2017 and 2018 taxes on time and be sentenced to probation.

The Justice Department also charged Mr. Biden but, under what is known as a pretrial diversion agreement, said it would not prosecute him in connection with his purchase of a handgun in 2018 during a period when he was using drugs. The deal is contingent on Mr. Biden remaining drug-free for 24 months and agreeing never to own a firearm again

Right-wing political factions are upset with this agreement. I believe the core argument is best exemplified by Andrew McCarthy at the National Review

The Intentionally Provocative Hunter Biden Plea Deal

Under Justice Department policy, even with a plea agreement, the government is supposed to seek a plea to the “most serious,” readily provable “offense that is consistent with the nature and full extent of the defendant’s conduct.” Hunter Biden committed tax offenses that could have been charged as evasion, which is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment for each count. Furthermore, he made a false statement that enabled him to obtain a firearm; that’s a ten-year felony under legislation pushed through by then-senator Joe Biden to show how very serious Democrats are about gun crime.

Biden apologists have tried to minimize that transaction as a “lie and try” case, which they say is often not prosecuted. But such non-prosecution (though it shouldn’t happen) occurs because of what you’d infer from the “try” part — i.e., the liar got caught and failed to obtain the gun. Hunter’s case, to the contrary, is a lie and succeed case. He got the gun. What’s more, he was then seen playing with it while cavorting with an “escort” (see the New York Post’s pictorial, if you’ve got the stomach for it). Shortly afterwards, he and his then-paramour — Hallie Biden, the widow of his older brother — managed to lose the gun near a school (it was later found by someone else).

Those are the kinds of gun cases that get charged by the Justice Department even if the suspect hasn’t, in addition, committed tax felonies by dodging taxes on the millions of dollars he was paid, apparently for being named Biden.

I have seen arguments and counter-arguments flying around the internet about the appropriateness of this legal action. Those in favor argue that any non-violent offender would be offered a lenient deal. Those arguing against reference past cases for tax crimes and paperwork-related firearms offenses that resulted in far more grievous punishments. In both cases, the other side argues that since the facts of the cases do not map 100% perfectly to this one, they cannot be used as precedent for deciding the fairness of this action.

What do you think? Was this action fair, in an ethical sense? Was this action within precedent, and if so, what other historical actions are you using as your guideposts? Do you think the choice to offer pretrial diversion was politically motivated? I'm interested to hear your opinions.

On the one hand, I sympathize with Joe for having a failson (it doesn’t seem that Joe’s a bad father, Beau turned out well and Ashley seems fine, I guess) and it’s also likely that any president’s child would get a similar sweetheart deal. If the president intervened, well…I think most people here would do what Joe did for their own children if they were president, I’m pretty sure.

On the other hand, Hunter seemingly can’t stop fucking up and it might well have been good for him and good for Joe to put him away for a few years.

I went to uni with a Biden, and she was a total party girl. An absolute embarrassment, in relative hindsight, but I thought she was really cool at the time. I have zero evidence or knowledge but zero doubt that she did several stints of rehab and an extensive "clean up your image" period. I was sure it was going to blow up for Biden when Obama got elected, but nary a peep since.

I think everything you’ve suggested in this comment is within the bounds of normality by the standards of this conversation.

If someone had asked you five years ago whether Hunter seemed fine, you probably would have answered yes as well. He was of counsel at Boies Schiller, was co-owner of an investment company, had bounced around at various government and private lobbying posts throughout his adult life, and carried on publicly like a respectable member of a political family. But for the laptop incident, that would still be the public view of him.

Being well-connected and having sympathetic political press at your disposal is hugely beneficial for families like the Bidens. The respectability is more of an effect of people not looking too closely than actually being respectable. I would venture a guess that a deeper look at the rest of the Bidens would probably reveal more of Hunter-type behavior than you might expect.

I think you couldn’t be more wrong. Hunter’s drug addiction has been discussed for decades, it was a big rumor in 2008. I googled his name and one of the first results was a CNN article from 2014 about Hunter being kicked out of the Navy Reserve for testing positive for cocaine. His shady lobbying activities were a big deal in the 2008 campaign; Obama ultimately forced him to step down over many of Joe’s protestations. There are stories as far back as the late 1990s about Hunter. Of course a sympathetic press is a boon, but the truth is usually printed somewhere.

and it’s also likely that any president’s child would get a similar sweetheart deal.

Would Trump's children receive such a deal?

We didn't prosecute Trump's son for misdemeanors no one is charged for. We didn't prosecute Biden's son for misdemeanors everyone is charged for. Therefore, equal treatment!

Also pretty funny given the foreign agent registration charges against Trump toadies. Here there is a knock down one for Biden but no charges (even though they relate to the tax fraud).

Above you stated it is not the IRS’ MO to seek felony convictions for tax fraud if after the whole process the taxpayer pays the money. Now you are claiming prosecutions for firearm possessions while lying about being a drug addict are “crazy rare.”

This cannot be from personal experience. The overlap between someone who practices enough million dollar plus tax evasion cases to understand the government’s MO and someone who practices enough drug addicts with guns to understand the government’s MO is zero. They are just fundamentally different practice areas for different clients with different skill sets.

This isn’t even a matter of “general legal analysis of the law.” No you are talking about the law as applied not as written which requires some experience.

So, what is your source for your claims? And what is your counter source (ie did you consider someone on the other side of the argument)? And how did you weigh them against each other? Or did you just make shit up and try to sound authoritative hoping no one would say boo?

"Prosecutions for false statements on gun-purchase forms are relatively rare, but they do happen.

Indeed. And it is one of the biggest DOJ/FBI/ATF failures as an institution given that lying on these forms is one of the primary ways that organized crime obtains weapons. Unsurprisingly, the reason for this failure is also because it would be bad politically for Democrats by highlighting the fact that minority women are, in fact, a huge part of the organized crime process

First, you are citing… H&R Block? Seriously? H&R Block isn’t handling complex tax issues. I

Second, even the H&R Block article doesn’t say what you claim it says. It doesn’t say you need to have both unreported income and attempt to hide during the audit.

What it actually says is the IRS looks for is:

Usually, tax evasion cases on legal-source income start with an audit of the filed tax return. In the audit, the IRS finds errors that the taxpayer knowingly and willingly committed. The error amounts are usually large and occur for several years – showing a pattern of willful evasion.

The article then says the IRS then looks for unreported income and/or dodgy behavior during audit. It notes dodgy behavior helps prove fraud. That is it is evidentiary; not substantive.

None of this supports your case that if the target eventually repays the IRS generally doesn’t pursue criminal charges. Once again, if you don’t punish willfully evading you will get more evading even if in the particular case you ultimately get the cash. In this case, the IRS agents investigating the crime noted that there was plenty of evidence of evasion; specifically (1) Biden set up a complex system to try to treat compensation as a loan but didn’t even properly record it is as such and (2) that Biden’s own accountant told him he needed to change his tax return because he did not properly report the income and Biden choose not to.

So please stop pretending to have expertise when you have none in the subject.

Lawyers for gang leaders describes someone familiar with both those practice areas, but also this information seems like it’s reasonably accessible to the general public. Federal charges relating to firearms acquisition are basically never filed, and the IRS’s MO is pretty widely known.

Maybe for gang leaders, but how frequently do gang people go for tax issues, especially more complex tax fraud issues?

And no, how the IRS handles tax fraud is not widely known. It isn’t a common thing. It really only comes up with celebrities and often the details of how and when repaid are entirely unclear. How often do people know about this when it deals with semi complex issues that even the IRS felt should be a felony until the DOJ allegedly overruled them.

As a non-lawyer, it's fairly well known that lying on the ATF Form 4473 basically never results in charges (as of the 2018 GAO report, at least -- they claim they're trying to increase those numbers). In FY 2017, 8.6M reported transactions led to 112k denials, 12.7k investigations, and 12 prosecutions. Presumably every one of those denials lied about eligibility on that form, barring questionable corner cases like "I forgot I have a felony conviction."

Note that Form 4473 here is the one that asks "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?" and notes in bold that lying on the form is itself a felony. I most often see this referenced by people in gun circles complaining that the law as-written is not enforced.

As much as I wish we'd actually, like, enforce laws in this country, starting to enforce previously-mostly-ignored laws specifically with people close to politicians is a bit of a bad look. OTOH, I'd really like to see us hold those in positions of power to a higher standard, rather than a lower one.

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  1. You could say the same thing about FARA violations but that changed with Trump.

  2. This case seems much worse than the normal. Here the gun was disposed of next to a school while Hunter and his sister-in-law and lover were both strung out. Therefore the activity seems much worse than normal. Also the perp’s own father sponsored the bill…

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This appears to be everyone's favorite CFAA. I have few comments about this specific case, but I mentally group it with the set of laws that exist but the Powers That Be refuse to enforce because they're likely overbroad. Some of the things it criminalizes absolutely should be valid charges, but, for example, in the 2020 Sandvig case, we finally saw a court rule that violating posted website terms of service is not inherently a criminal act.

In this instance (from my brief skim of the page you mentioned) "logging into a service account with a password that had been both posted publicly and also privately messaged" seems like the sort of borderline case which might allow a competent defense (which admittedly, the Trump family seems to have difficulty fielding) to limit the law's utility for acquiring questionable warrants. IMO we'd do well to make challenges to unenforced laws easier.

If trump was president, quite possibly. I’m 100% sure that bush’s kid would receive such a deal.

Bush's kid couldn't even avoid a driver's license suspension in a drunk driving case.

And this doesn’t seem that out of step. The gun charge is rarely prosecuted and he did pay the money back.

In 1976?

No, 2001

It wasn't even a drunk driving case after all, it was just underaged drinking with a fake ID.

Ha. Guess I missed that.

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