Shaun Kraisman
And we’re taking this Hunter Biden case up in today’s edition of National Report Court. So for the purpose of this segment, we have criminal defense attorney Jacqueline Goodman and former prosecutor David DiPietro. We appreciate both of you joining us for your time this morning. David will start with you again. Those charges there we saw in those court filing sent over again as a former prosecutor. Can you walk us through what happens during these plea deals?
David Di Pietro
Sure, I could tell you one thing for sure is the federal government and the Department of Justice is not in the business of indicting misdemeanors. So obviously this was a compromise of some sort because Hunter Biden likely the facts were enough to charge him with felonies or or even more which were more serious crimes. So it looks like there was some sort of compromise deal that was done in order to facilitate a guilty verdict to avoid a trial, which I guess all sides probably wanted to avoid a trial. But the appearance now is it looks like a sweetheart deal that was given to the president’s son and and looking in contrast to what’s going on with President Trump. It looks like the critics are going to say this is a two-tiered justice system. So what we’re looking at in the future is that there’ll be a plea. It’ll be in this this set of the charges will have double jeopardy and it’ll be over and it’ll probably receive a slap on the wrist wrist, but we’ll have to see because the Department of Justice did say the case that the investigation of Hunter Biden is not closed yet. So it looks like there could be more to come and this could be just the beginning of a waterfall of many more allegations and charges coming down the road. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Emma Rechenberg
You know Republicans are investigating of course, but the House members could not bring forward charges and according to Hunter Biden’s attorney, he said the deal is resolved essentially that that it’s over here. We know there’s been a long time investigation at least details that we’ve heard from House Republicans and to what they might be looking into here, but if we could just stay on on this current decision here for a moment and talk to us about what’s typical when it comes to folks who are being investigated for not paying their taxes or also filling out a gun form the wrong way illegally. What might you typically expect again keeping in mind your client might not be the first son of the United States.
Jacqueline Goodman
Quite frankly, this is all very atypical. There’s been five years of investigation and a grand jury. A US attorney who is a Donald Trump appointee and from that comes two misdemeanor charges for the failure to pay taxes on time from 2017 and 2018.(…) They were in fact paid and then the gun charge which is illegal possession of a gun stemming from making a false statement that false statement being that he wasn’t an addict or that he wasn’t using illegal drugs. So all of those things are very atypical. In fact, I think only 3% of gun charges include the failure to properly file the forms in order to get the gun. So it’s actually atypical that somebody would be charged with these kinds of crimes and it may be ironic, but it may be that rather than getting the favor from politics, I think maybe having his father in office did not bode to his advantage this time and maybe he was treated a little bit more harshly quite frankly.(…)
Shaun
David, I want to throw that back at you. If that was atypical and again,(…) this seems all accurate. Well, why does I know I continue to ask this question, but why would this take five years of an investigation only to come to this conclusion here?(…)
David
That’s the big question because five years, there must have been a lot of evidence they poured over and a lot of negotiations back and forth because the federal government just doesn’t indict misdemeanors. You never see that. This has to be a compromise of something bigger that was pled down. So there was a quid pro quo. We could charge you with felonies and you could go to trial or you can plead to misdemeanors and it’ll be all over and you’ll not face a lot of time. This happens all the time. I mean, 97% of cases in this country, criminal cases are resolved through plea deals. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have enough judges and juries to deal with them. So this is atypical in the sense of the federal government charging a misdemeanor. You just never see it. So there was greater charges available to the prosecutors clearly and a compromise deal was done. Now, how strong those felonies were. That’s what we’re going to find out in the days to come because if they were a lot stronger and they put it down a misdemeanor, you’re going to see a lot of critics say this was a sweetheart deal slap on the wrist, you know, a tad amount to a traffic ticket type of citation and he got away with a lot more because his father’s a president of the United States.
Emma
That idea echoes a tweet that we’ve seen recently from Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. We can share it now with our viewers. He said this Biden son got a sweetheart deal for laundering money accepting millions and bribes committing gun crimes, evading taxes and child support. Yet, DOJ targeted a pro-life pastor with a 25 person SWAT team and a serious charges. AG Garland is a disgrace again sort of pointing out Jacqueline what we’ve heard before this phrase this two tier system of justice. What’s your read on that and and maybe Americans who are trying to sort of get a read on on where the Department of Justice really stands right now when it comes to priorities based on political affiliations.
Jacqueline
Well, you know, I have to say over and over again based on what everybody says well, obviously there was more. There’s nothing obvious about it. Senator Cotton was not part of that grand jury. Those were citizens who poured over five years of investigation to come up with these charges and again, this was a US attorney that was a Donald Trump appointee. Merrick Garland clearly stayed away from it and did his best to allow that US attorney all of the resources that he needed in order to complete this investigation. This is what came out of it. I don’t know if there’s more. There may be more but no one knows and so for everybody’s conjecture here where they they assume that there had to be more, I would say, you know, the opposite is also just as likely if not more likely.
Shaun
Alright, gotta leave right there. We appreciate the time of Jacqueline Goodman, David DePietro. We appreciate you as well and this discussion obviously will continue throughout the day.
Controversy surrounding Hunter Biden is nothing new, dating back prior to the 2020 election. Up until recently no charges had been filed against Hunter. However as of June 20th, this has changed. He is now facing two misdemeanor charges for both tax evasion as well as gun possession by a prohibited person. While these charges are serious, they will unlikely have a long term effect on Hunter as they are not felonies. This has raised concerns and questions as to whether or not he is being let off easy because of his father’s position as a sitting US President.
Former prosecutor David Di Pietro was brought on Newmax’s National Report with defense attorney Jacqueline Goodman to discuss the details of the plea deal and debate whether or not the charges were too lenient or appropriate for the circumstances. David explained that it is exceptionally unusual for the federal government to charge individuals with misdemeanor crimes, so it is likely that these were lesser crimes as a compromise from what was originally being pursued. Goodman on the other hand argued that these charges were unusual and specifically mentioned that the U.S. attorney in this case was a Trump appointee, hinting that there may be a political motive involved. While David mentioned that this deal could possibly open the door to further charges, Goodman suggested that it is unlikely there will be anything further to come after this has passed.
David was requested to appear on Newsmax due to his qualifications and experience as a former prosecutor in Broward County, FL.