Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley blasted the sweetheart plea deal Hunter Biden struck with federal prosecutors Tuesday, which was limited to tax crimes and a firearm violation and will likely allow the president’s son to dodge prison time.
President Joe Biden’s son was charged with two federal misdemeanor counts for failing to pay taxes and one felony count of improper firearm possession. As part of the deal, Hunter won’t even be prosecuted on that last charge as long as he avoids drugs for two years and never owns another firearm.
The gentle treatment from the Justice Department, said Grassley, “cannot be the final word given the significant body of evidence” in the hands of federal law enforcement.
“Since the FBI’s investigation into Hunter Biden began nearly five years ago, I and my colleagues in Congress have uncovered extensive government and bank records indicative of money laundering as well as foreign business schemes that, in any other circumstance, would raise serious criminal and counterintelligence concerns,” Grassley said. “Hunter’s laptop, which the FBI has had since 2019, contains records corroborating much of this evidence, as well as evidence of other serious criminal violations.”
The Iowa lawmaker, who has spent half a decade investigating the first son, went on to highlight recent whistleblower reports from the DOJ and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that claim federal investigators have sabotaged any potential for a significant indictment.
In May, an IRS whistleblower spoke publicly on CBS News about efforts within the DOJ to hamper the federal tax probe.
“There were multiple steps that were slow-walked — were just completely not done — at the direction of the Department of Justice,” said Gary Shapley. “These deviations from the process,” he added, “seemed to always benefit the subject.”
More whistleblowers from within the FBI have made similar allegations that the Department of Justice is working to shield the Biden family from thorough investigations. The plea deal on Tuesday comes as President Joe Biden himself faces credible bribery allegations from his time as vice president.
[RELATED: Hunter Biden’s Charges Are Nothing But A Diversion]
House Republicans who reviewed “suspicious activity reports” housed within the Treasury Department about Hunter Biden’s finances say they’ve expanded their own investigation of the Biden family to “six additional” members.
“On top of all of that, whistleblowers at the Justice Department and IRS have warned that the FBI and Justice Department have sat on additional verifiable information about criminal conduct that involves other Biden family members, and have failed to follow normal investigative procedures to run that information to ground,” said Grassley. “All of this information has been provided to the Department.”
Grassley’s own investigation with Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson discovered a network of payments between Hunter Biden and Chinese nationals affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party. The senators’ own report in 2020 found Hunter Biden took $3.5 million from an ex-Moscow mayor’s wife; it also accused him of paying for prostitutes who might have been trafficked.