Again, 'Trumper protocol'; jump to conclusions, swallow misinformation, lose shit. Then suffer the posts that provide the clarifications that were available almost immediately.

Attorney General Merrick Garland Was Actually Pretty Harsh on Hunter Biden

WHAT’S THE POINT?

Not wanting the Justice Department to appear “political,” Garland nailed the president’s drug addicted son on minor charges that just about anyone else would not face.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/attorney-genera...n?ref=home

Shan Wu
Published Jun. 20, 2023 5:30PM ET

.....Notably absent from the plea deal are any charges arising from Biden’s infamous laptop—a potential piece of evidence that might hold the record for worst chain of custody in history.

Despite various analyses that indicate some evidence actually came from the laptop, it is hard to imagine any prosecutor wanting to rely on evidence that was already handled by scores of others, including Rudy Giuliani.

Oh, and there’s the problem of whether any of the data on the laptop actually indicates criminal conduct. To the extent the laptop and the rest of the GOP’s complaints are really about family members of presidents profiting off their family name—they have a point, but not a criminal case.

From FDR’s son, Richard Nixon’s brother, Jimmy Carter’s brother, to Donald Trump’s children—the sketchy nature of profiting from the president’s family name remains an issue, but so far not one that can be solved by criminal charges.

So the result of this five-year long investigation is that a recovering drug addict who paid his taxes late and lied about using drugs to purchase a firearm will be convicted of tax evasion, and be given pre-trial diversion for lying on his gun ownership application. It is likely that any other drug addict who was not the son of a sitting president would not have been prosecuted for these charges.

But AG Merrick Garland—ever sensitive to accusations of DOJ looking political—kept the original prosecutor on the case to insulate DOJ from accusations of political partisanship, and refused to exercise what could easily be considered reasonable prosecutorial discretion in refusing to bring criminal charges for such minor offenses.

As usual, Garland’s efforts to avoid political backlash are doomed to failure.

Frankly, DOJ would have taken just as much criticism if Garland had removed the original Trump-appointed prosecutor and declined to bring any criminal charges. Now the DOJ will simply wait for the inevitable calls for hearings into the plea deal and the likely summoning of the prosecutor to Capitol Hill to face questions.

However, the prosecutor David Weiss has issued a statement saying that his investigation of Hunter Biden is “ongoing.” It’s possible this could stave off any congressional inquiries, since the case is still active. But the prospect of Weiss continuing to investigate is a disturbing one that raises the specter of Special Counsel John Durhams’s dead-man-walking investigation of the Russia probe that took four years and produced nearly nothing.

Attorney General Garland would be doing the country and tax payers a big favor if he simply pulled the plug on any further investigation into Hunter Biden, and simply took the heat for doing so.


Shan Wu