Hunter Biden’s attorneys reportedly met with federal prosecutors on Wednesday to discuss potential forthcoming criminal charges against the president’s son.
CBS News reported that the attorneys met with the Department of Justice officials representing the tax division and U.S. attorney for Delaware David Weiss, a Trump-era prosecutor who is overseeing the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.
“In the ordinary course, in a federal criminal tax case, and pursuant to policy and practice, defense attorneys get a meeting for the asking,” said Chuck Rosenberg, an NBC News legal analyst and former U.S. attorney. “They typically use that meeting to try to persuade Justice Department prosecutors not to charge their client, often to no avail.”
NBC News reported late last week that federal prosecutors were weighing charging Hunter Biden with four crimes, including a felony tax evasion charge, a potential felony charge related to the purchase of a firearm, and two misdemeanor charges for failing to file taxes.
Two senior law enforcement officials told the publication that there was “growing frustration” inside the FBI that the president’s son has not been charged because the bureau finished most of its work a year ago and the IRS finished its investigation more than a year ago.
An IRS agent alleged last week that the federal government’s criminal investigation into Hunter Biden is being corrupted by lies and politics.
The allegations appeared in a letter that the agent’s lawyer, Mark Lytle, sent to leaders of both parties in Congress. Though the letter only says the agent is overseeing the “ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject,” sources confirmed to The Wall Street Journal the investigation into Hunter Biden is the focus of the matter.
The letter identifies the client as an “IRS criminal supervisory special agent” who has already made “legally protected disclosures internally at the IRS, through counsel to the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and to the Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General.” Now this IRS agent wants to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress despite “serious risks of retaliation,” the letter says.
Disclosures made to the government watchdogs “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee,” “involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case,” and “detail examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected,” according to the letter.
The letter adds: “Some of the protected disclosures contain information that is restricted by statute from unauthorized disclosure to protect taxpayer and tax return information.”
FBI and IRS investigators have been looking into his foreign business dealings, tax affairs, and more. The Washington Post reported in October that federal agents believed they had sufficient evidence to charge the younger Biden with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun purchase.
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