President Biden only commenting briefly
when asked about the plea agreement
that his son Hunter, struck
with federal prosecutors
guilty pleas on a pair
of misdemeanor counts
of failing
to pay his income tax
and working to avoid a felony
firearm fire.
Firearm related charge
You're saying that
I'm very proud of my son.
Shortly before that, the White House
put out a statement saying, quote,
The president
and first lady
love their son and support him
as he continues to rebuild his life.
We will have no further comment.
Former President Trump,
meanwhile, reacting to the deal
on his own social network.
Saying a sweetheart deal for Hunter
and Joe as they continue their quest
to get Trump.
And he's not alone
in that criticism today
among Republicans.
CNN's Evan Perez joins us now
with more on that.
Evan, first,
let's talk about this plea deal
and what you can tell us.
As you know,
this investigation had been going on
for so many years.
How did they come to this agreement
today?
Yeah, this is five years
in the making, Caitlin.
And the bottom line is that
prosecutors are expected to recommend
no prison time,
no no prison
time for Hunter
Biden as a result of this plea deal
in which he is
pleading guilty
to two
misdemeanor accounts
for failing to file taxes on time
in 20, 17 and 2018.
There's a separate agreement
for this gun charge.
This is for him purchasing a firearm
during the time that he was there,
that he has spoken publicly
about his addiction to drugs.
And so he should not have been able
to buy that firearm.
He lied on that on the federal form
when he bought he purchased purchased it.
Under this deal if he completes the terms
that the court will assign to him,
he gets it expunged.
It goes away at the end of this.
And so
that those are the terms of the deal.
We don't we do believe this is a
deal that
that certainly was
weeks and months
in negotiations in the making. Caitlin.
Yeah, and I imagine
obviously we saw
from Republicans responding
almost immediately
after this was reported
from these court filings from the DOJ,
saying essentially that they believe that
this was an unfair deal that was cut
because he is the president's son.
What else were they saying, Evan?
Yeah, that's
this is
this is just a preview
of what I think you're going to hear
from Republicans
who believe
that there's a lot more here
to investigate
involving the former
the president's son
and also other members of the family.
Here's
just a
sample of what they were saying today.
Continues to show
the two tier system in America.
If you were the president's
leading political opponent,
the DOJ tries to literally
put you in jail and give you prison time
if you are the president's son
and get a sweetheart deal.
I wonder if
people that
have been investigating
the Bidens
knew about the shell companies,
if they knew about the money laundering
and if they knew about the
the money wires.
I think that the U.S.
attorney will be invited to testify
to some committee.
The Department of Justice
offered Mr.
Hunter Biden a really good deal.
I think the American people
are still curious
about where the real money came from
and what he did for
and Caitlin.
Look, the
the FBI and the IRS
spent years investigating
many of the things
that you just heard
some of the lawmakers mentioned,
including
allegations of money laundering,
all allegations
that are foreign lab lobbying,
business dealings in Ukraine and China.
And this is where they ended up Yeah.
And that was when there was a Trump
appointed attorney general
in leading the Justice Department.
Trump was in office.
We'll get to that in a moment.
Evan Perez, thank you.
Joining us now, conservative
lawyer and Washington Post
contributing columnist George Conway.
You heard
what the Republicans
were saying immediately.
Do you think there's any outcome of this
that would have satisfied
congressional Republicans?
Absolutely not.
I mean, if
if they had
brought a RICO charge
against against Hunter Biden,
they would be complaining that
what took you so long?
There would be there'd be.
It's purely performative
and it's purely reflexive,
as shown by the fact
that when the Donald Trump's indictment
came down,
they didn't bother to read it,
to criticize it.
And here it's just you know, there was
just admitting to
ignoring the fact that this investigation
was conducted by a Trump appointee,
a Republican U.S.
attorney
who is allowed to stay on and told
you need to
you need to follow up on this.
You need to finish this.
And we're not going to interfere
with you.
And I can't imagine after a five year
investment from the DOJ, this U.S.
attorney's office,
which actually had to bring in people
from other states to make sure
that there was no fave home state
favoritism here in Delaware.
The fact is that this U.S.
attorney invested five years in this.
And I can't imagine
you wouldn't have brought a charge
if there was a bigger charge,
if there was one warranted. Yeah.
And you mentioned him,
that attorney, David Weiss,
and he said
in a letter to Jim Jordan that was sent
just about two weeks ago.
I want to make clear
that as the attorney general has stated,
I have been granted ultimate authority
over this matter,
including responsibility
for deciding where,
when and whether to file charges.
But Republicans are downplaying
that he was the one
doing this investigation right
there, downplaying that
because they want to push
this narrative of a two tier
justice system.
And they really don't
I mean, if if Hunter Biden
if if let's say
if the former president's son
had been charged with the former
president has been investigated
for all sorts of tax issues,
he has paid
minimal amounts of taxes
over a number of years.
And these same Republicans
are the people who basically say
that's a witch hunt
and they refuse to look at that.
And they're the same people
who basically are
who who
basically want to cut IRS funding.
And at the same time,
if not the son of the president
of former President
Don Junior or somebody
you know,
I mean, I'm
not saying he has some kind of a
drug problem or anything like that,
but if he
if he were to have done the same thing,
they would be
they would be marching in the streets
complaining that this Second Amendment
rights were violated.
The one thing we do know
is that Republicans
still have control of the House.
James Colmer is still
the chairman of the House
Oversight Committee.
And today he was saying, you know,
we're not going to rest
until the full extent
of basically
their investigations
into the Biden family.
Are done,
even though they haven't really uncovered
any wrongdoing from the president.
But James Colmer did list
a variety of crimes of allegations,
talking about wire fraud, money
laundering, racketeering.
Evan noted that this investigation
has been going on for five years.
Is there any way
that the Justice Department
would have found
any credible evidence of that?
But only gone forward with what they did?
You know, it's just inconceivable.
I mean, it is just inconceivable.
And if the Justice Department of Main
Justice had done anything
to try to interfere
with this investigation in Delaware,
I can't imagine that there wouldn't
have been criticism
that leaked out,
as we've seen in other cases.
So I think that it's just
you know,
it's just an it's
just political opportunism.
It's it's false equivalence.
It's all the things that we've seen
from the Republicans when it relates to
doing what they can
to protect Donald Trump.
George Conway, thank you.