President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has not dodged potential criminal charges for the taxes he failed to pay while serving on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings nearly a decade ago.
Special counsel David Weiss, the lead prosecutor in Hunter Biden’s ongoing tax fraud case, let the statute of limitations expire for not paying $124,000 in taxes on his roughly $1 million Burisma salary in 2014. Critics say the move was aimed at shielding the Bidens from a case that may have exposed evidence of influence peddling involving then-Vice President Biden.
However, legal experts say Mr. Weiss can revive the case because Hunter Biden has not yet paid the taxes. He could be charged with conspiracy to commit tax fraud, a move that could lead investigators to evidence of Mr. Biden’s alleged involvement in helping Burisma thwart a state corruption probe on behalf of his son.
“This is a crucial test for Weiss,” said Mike Davis, a former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and president of the Article III Project, which advocates for constitutionalist judges and the rule of law.
Mr. Weiss is facing intense scrutiny from House and Senate lawmakers over his handling of the tax fraud and gun violation probe of the president’s son.
After a plea deal with Hunter Biden fell apart in court in July, Mr. Weiss indicted him on three felony gun charges related to his possession of a Colt Cobra revolver while addicted to drugs.
But Mr. Weiss has yet to indicate how, or whether, he plans to charge Hunter Biden over hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes and other possible crimes, including violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act or FARA.
House Republicans honed in on the unpaid Burisma taxes when they questioned Attorney General Merrick Garland at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Sept. 20 about IRS whistleblower allegations of political interference in the Hunter Biden tax fraud probe.
“You let the statute limitations lapse for 2014, 2015. Those were the years with the felony tax charges where Hunter Biden was getting income from Burisma,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said to Mr. Garland at the hearing.
Testimony provided to House lawmakers by Hunter Biden’s former business associate Devon Archer indicated that Burisma executives pressured Hunter Biden for help from his father in shaking off a corruption probe. Hunter Biden and the Burisma executives called Mr. Biden from Dubai, according to Archer, to seek his help in thwarting the probe. Three days later, then-Vice President Biden told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko he must fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma, or risk losing $1 billion in loans.
Republicans accuse the Justice Department of blocking the 2014 tax charges against Hunter Biden to prevent further investigation that could incriminate President Biden.
Mr. Garland and Mr. Weiss deny politics played a role in the investigation and Mr. Biden has denied having any involvement in his son’s business deals.
As part of the now-discarded plea deal, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges related to his failure to pay more than $100,000 in taxes in 2017 and 2018. The agreement did not carry a jail sentence. It was scuttled in a July court hearing, prompting Mr. Weiss to seek and receive special counsel status from Mr. Garland. The move allows him to charge the president’s son with additional crimes, including FARA violations, an act the Justice Department revived in recent years to prosecute several associates of former President Donald Trump.
“If Weiss intends to restore any integrity to his investigation, he must immediately and aggressively move forward with all readily probable charges against Hunter, including related to foreign bribery and corruption, being an unregistered foreign agent, wire fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy,” Mr. Davis said.
In his role as Delaware’s U.S. attorney, Mr. Weiss began investigating Hunter Biden in 2018. Along the way, according to testimony to congressional investigators, Mr. Weiss was blocked by two Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys from charging Hunter Biden on felony and misdemeanor tax offenses in California and the nation’s capital, including for the unpaid taxes on his Burisma salary.
Mr. Weiss allowed the statute of limitations to expire on prosecuting Hunter Biden over his failure to pay the Burisma taxes, despite reaching an agreement with Hunter Biden’s lawyers to extend the prosecution window.
“Hunter Biden lied to the IRS to avoid paying $124,000 in taxes on 2014 income from Burisma,” said Tristan Leavitt, a lawyer for one of two IRS whistleblowers who have accused Mr. Weiss and the Justice Department of mishandling the Hunter Biden tax investigation. “To this day he hasn’t paid it. The government is letting him get away with that.”
In a transcript of a closed-door interview with House lawmakers earlier this month, IRS Criminal Investigations Director Michael Batdorf described a December 2022 call between himself, Mr. Weiss and IRS agent Darrell Waldon.
The Washington Times obtained a copy of the transcript.
In the call, Mr. Weiss informs them the U.S. attorney for the central district of California, Biden appointee Martin Astrada, “declined” to work with Mr. Weiss to prosecute Hunter Biden for unpaid taxes in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
“He just said that they had declined and he had to make a decision on where he was going to go,” Mr. Batdorf recalled. “I don’t know if he was frustrated. I was frustrated. Was it me just feeling he was probably a little frustrated? I would assume he [was] because now he had to make some decisions on what he was going to do.”
Six months earlier, the U.S. attorney for Washington, Matthew Graves, declined Mr. Weiss’s request to charge Hunter Biden over the unpaid Burisma taxes. Mr. Weiss let the statute of limitations pass, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley said, “because he had no way to bring the charges,” despite assurances from Mr. Garland that Mr. Weiss had full authority to prosecute the president’s son.
Mr. Weiss may never charge Hunter Biden with felonies related to any of the unpaid taxes, even if the law allows it, and will instead let the gun charges stand as the most serious punishment for the president’s son.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said under federal sentencing guidelines, Hunter Biden, who intends to plead not guilty, could receive up to 14 months in jail for the gun offenses if he is convicted.
“They had that deal,” on the tax misdemeanor charges, Mr. Rahmani said. “As far as piling on more, if it was going to happen, it would have happened already.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.