A couple months ago the findings against Hunter Biden were nothing, not even worth taking to court, only under GOP pressure did the Trump appointed prosecutor take it to court. Now it seems like a big deal and 17 years (max). What happened? Why the change? Was new evidence found?
This is an incredibly important question to understand if you’re American or are ever in the jurisdiction of America. America is not the land of the free or equality or civil rights. Almost everybody commits a handful of crimes every day. Sometimes bigger crimes. Sometimes felony huge crimes. I’m talking ordinary people like your grandma. You know like your grandma, not actual “criminals”.
For example when Grandma drives 45mph on the highway, that’s a misdemeanor in many places for going too slowly. Then when she fills up her big gulp and takes a few sips then tops it off, that’s criminal theft. When she sees a letter addressed to you delivered to her and opens it so she can tell you what it is, that’s a felony criminal offense with a 6 month federal prison sentence attached.
Now the police are just snitches. If they see you do something they can ticket and/or arrest you. If you’re not doing something wrong, but don’t agree to be arrested, congratulations now you’ve actually committed another crime!
But the end of all of this is the district attorney, the DA. The DA (the office with lots of staff and a main big head honcho) is tasked with looking at these charges, deeming what is really a crime they care about, and bringing forth charges. Of the DA got a report on your grandma committing a felony mail fraud by opening your mail, you’d hope in a sane world they’d laugh it off and ignore it. The problem is this relies on one person or a small group of people making the “right” decision which ironically is illegal itself, and choosing what charges to bring against who.
When things are high profile, they bring all charges because they have to. Not bringing charges is against the law itself, but again is handwaved higher up because that’s the stupid system. Then it’s up to the actual judicial system to decide the criminality and the punishment, then enforce. The import take away at this point is that in the USA, you can literally be charged and arrested at anytime for anything. That is not hyperbole. If you want an example on the other side of the spectrum, look at the lawyers talking about Trumps crap. Everyone knows he’s guilty but getting a jury conviction, somewhat unlikely considering you need 12/12 in agreement. So the pundits correctly say, if we know he’s guilty they can charge him with these other random crimes and get him. If he’s in jail, who cares what for. This is done ALL THE TIME. Most famous high profile case being Al Capone. Everyone knows he was a mobster and killed people. But they couldn’t make it stick. So what do they do? Charge him with tax evasion crimes and give him the maximum penalties for everything. If they want to get you, they can get you.
So back to Hunter. Nothing has changed as the alleged crimes. Everyone is in agreement he did it. His crimes are nothingburgers. Lying on the gun app is something most rednecks do all the time, it’s a formality paper. And funny enough, they’re happy with him losing his gun rights for drug use, the second amendment doesn’t apply to him I guess. That lie on the application is the first crime. He’s guilty. It is usually a slap on the wrist, no time, no fine. But it CAN be prison time. So for him, it is.
The other things are tax issues. He misreported and misfiled taxes for many years. Daddy paid the back taxes, he paid Daddy back. In most cases the IRS is happy with that, sometimes they assess a big fine. Everyone goes on their way. But the IRS charges can impose federal prison. And for him it is.
I understand it’s a large wall of text. I understand it goes against most of what Americans believe. And most will never experience it. But it is there. And you need to know it.
That was excellent!
Question about the back taxes. Why in the world would it be illegal to let someone else pay them and then reimburse them later?
It isn’t. The point is that accruing back taxes requires payment and may, at the discretion of the IRS, mandate a criminal charge. He wasn’t charge at the time because he paid, but he could have been. So now they want him to have been.
However I think neither party really wants things to go this way, and Republicans are going to see lots of retaliatory investigation and charges brought over missed payments etc. should they pursue this.
A waste of time and money, doesn’t improve anything in the world, just creates more division. Basically the GOP motto.
Don’t think missing payments is illegal, they just fine you to hell and back, but it’s not criminal. From further reading I’m gathering there was some low-key fraud, and that they will nail you for.
Accruing back taxes can happen for a lot of reasons, one of which would be deliberate under reporting, which if a form of fraud. Hence why the IRS has the latitude to recommend charges if they feel the actions were significant and deliberate.
It’s important to remember that Trump’s current case he’s arguing he didn’t have the Mens Rea for deliberate fraud, so it’s weird to see GOP members discounting that argument as invalid with Biden.
It’s unconscionable certainly, but “weird” implies unusual or unexpected.
Just to piggyback with my own anecdote: do you think this ends when you’re finally in prison? NOPE. Same deal on the inside. Just change misdemeanor with “minor infraction” and felony with “major infraction.”
Source: ex CO.
Minor infractions were at my discretion and unless you were being a dick about it summarily ignored my by me. Majors I had no choice, no matter how stupid. Fortunately though it’s only on paper that I didn’t have a choice.
Thanks for sharing. What do you mean by this?
If I knew with confidence that what they were doing wasn’t harming anyone, and wasn’t gang related bullshit I’d just look the other way. The department can’t fault you for “missing” things.
Example would be catching someone tattooing. This often ended up with time in solitary. But if it wasn’t a gang tat, and the inmates weren’t dicks about being caught/immediately flushing all the evidence I’d just kick the tattoo artist out of the cell and the half finished tattoo is enough punishment. They’ll get it finished one way or another but it’s more funny to me than sending them to the hole, and they appreciate it most of the time. If my supervisor happened to be with me, or watching me though, you were cooked. Most understood the fact that I would protect my income over them being as I wouldn’t give a fuck literally any other time, but my hands have been tied more than once when shit should have slid by.
One small nitpick: it’s completely legal for a DA decide to charge/not charge for most (all?) crimes. Look up “prosecutorial discretion”.