Charges Will Be Discussed This Week, Report Says

Topline

Hunter Biden’s attorneys will meet with the Justice Department next week to discuss possible tax fraud charges and another charge stemming from a gun purchase, according to CNN, amid allegations by an IRS agent claiming Biden has received preferential treatment during the agency’s investigation.

Hunter Biden’s attorneys will meet with the Department of Justice next week, according to a report.

Key Facts

Biden faces two possible misdemeanor charges for failing to file his taxes and felony charges for tax evasion and for allegedly failing to disclose the purchase of a firearm on a federal form, federal prosecutors told NBC News.

Biden’s lawyers are meeting with Justice Department officials next week to discuss the charges, according to CNN.

The charges were first reported by the Washington Post last year, after federal agents overseeing an investigation into Biden indicated there was sufficient evidence to charge him.

An IRS agent overseeing the agency’s investigation into Biden suggested in a letter this week that the probe had been mishandled, alleging examples of “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols” in the agency, according to the Associated Press.

Two law enforcement officials told NBC News there was “growing frustration” inside the FBI because its investigation into Biden was mostly complete last year, while another official indicated the IRS finished its probe more than a year ago.

Christopher Clark, Biden’s lawyer, told the New York Times Thursday that the IRS agent violated the law by disclosing taxpayer information.

Tangent

The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week alleging Blinken worked to discredit a New York Post story about Biden’s laptop, published before the November 2020 election, by setting in motion a campaign to dismiss the story as a Russian disinformation campaign. Former intelligence officials “falsely discredited” the story after Blinken, then a campaign advisor for Biden, “played a role” in its inception, the committees claim. The letter cites testimony from former CIA deputy director Michael Morrell, who indicated Blinken contacted him to discuss the story. A Democratic member of the judiciary committee told CNN that Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) had “cherry-picked excerpts of a transcribed interview.”

Key Background

An investigation into Biden began in 2018 over his international business ventures, though it has since expanded onto his taxes and his purchase of a .38 revolver in 2018. In 2018, Biden allegedly failed to disclose the firearm purchase in a questionnaire that inquired about his drug addiction. Biden’s tax charges stem from allegedly failing to file his taxes in 2016 and 2017 and for falsely claiming at least $30,000 in deductions for business expenses. Biden has also been scrutinized following a 2020 New York Post story that indicated a laptop belonging to Biden—left at a Delaware-based computer store—contained emails that showed how he used his father’s influence as vice president for his own benefit. After 51 current and former intelligence leaders derided the story as Russian false news, the story was largely muffled, with social platforms Twitter refusing to let the story be promoted for a few days.

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