{"id":18829,"date":"2024-06-06T21:33:13","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T18:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=18829"},"modified":"2024-06-06T21:33:13","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T18:33:13","slug":"joe-biden-in-the-political-minefield-of-the-hunter-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=18829","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden in the political “minefield” of the Hunter trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The calendar pointed to October 2018. In the midst of Donald Trump’s US presidency at the time, Joe Biden was still weighing the prospect of running for the White House in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the background, the situation in his family resembled something out of a soap opera, with a heavy dose of reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His second son, Hunter Biden, was addicted to drugs and in an affair with Hallie Biden, the widow of his older brother, Bo, who had died three years earlier of brain cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night that October, Hunter had slept over at Hallie’s house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the morning, while he slept, she took her two children to school, returned home and frantically searched for Hunter’s car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He found a .38 Colt Cobra pistol, which Hunter had illegally purchased by falsely stating in writing that he did not use drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panicked, Hallie hid the gun in a bag and threw it in a dumpster miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You’re crazy,” he wrote her in an angry cell phone message when she informed him of what she had done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You are completely irresponsible and unbalanced.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Get into rehab,” Hallie replied. \u201cDon’t screw it up again. Please don’t leave.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He didn’t hear her\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The text messages are included in the federal gun case against Hunter Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It began on June 3 in Delaware court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s just the first this year against the president’s son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second on $1.4 million in tax evasion and fraud charges is scheduled in California in September, less than two months before the polls open for a crucial November election.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“On pegs”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all the charges against him, 54-year-old Hunter Biden – who has been involved in countless scandals – now declares himself innocent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His trials arose after the “wreck” of the out-of-court deal he had made last year with US prosecutors, with a guilty plea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republicans – who have their eyes on Joe Biden through Hunter Biden and his business dealings in China and Ukraine, at the time his father was vice president of the USA – had then climbed the “rails”, denouncing political interference in Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal ultimately fell apart after Delaware District Judge Maryellen Noreika\u2014who was appointed to the seat by Donald Trump\u2014challenged aspects of the out-of-court settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Hunter’s first trial is being held with his stepmother Jill Budden in court and a short distance from the US president’s local campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state that Joe Biden represented since 1974 and for 36 years as a senator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As president, I do not want to comment on an ongoing federal trial,” he said in a statement, “but as a father, I have boundless love for my son, trust in him and respect for his strength.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Hunter’s trial – like the next one – complicates the US president’s re-election campaign and raises concerns among Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an election season that appears to be going through the US courts, the testimony of Halle Biden and other women from Hunter Biden’s past – including his ex-wife – will provide fodder for negative headlines and new attacks from Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially for the “camp” of the Democrats, what will be reported in the trial risks eliminating any poll benefits from the conviction of Trump, whose sentence is still pending.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Elections in the background of the courts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hunter Biden has argued that he has been unfairly targeted by his father’s political opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But his legal problems are currently at the top of the US president’s list of personal concerns, people close to him told The New York Times on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Delaware trial, Hunter faces three felony counts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years each and the third up to five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if he is not sentenced to prison – as is usually the case with cases of a first non-violent offense – it is considered certain that the hearing process will be “tooled” pre-election by the Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either to give “breath” to their investigation in the House of Representatives with the question of the impeachment of Joe Biden, which is actually deadlocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either mainly to distract from the Trump condemnation. More likely pending the announcement of the sentence, on July 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the eve of the Republican National Convention, where Trump will receive the presidential anointing, but also in the middle of the two scheduled debates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is on June 27 and the second on September 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Hunter’s trial in California will begin on September 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nine charges include failure to pay taxes, false tax declaration, tax evasion for the period 2016-2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He “willfully failed” to pay his taxes to the U.S. government on time on gross income of about $7 million, prosecutors said in the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, he splashed money on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, fancy cars, clothes and other items of a personal nature.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hunter finally paid his taxes in 2020 – the year his father was running for the US presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as stated in the court documents, the back taxes were paid by a “third party”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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