Brett Tolman
Years have passed since we first heard about the notorious laptop containing salacious videos and compromising emails abandoned by Hunter Biden in a Delaware repair shop.
Corporate media, the intelligence community and politicians even have downplayed, discounted and denied the laptop contents which implicated then-candidate Joe Biden’s son.
In my career, I’ve spent over 20 years in the federal criminal justice system with more than a decade as a federal prosecutor and nearly the same as a defense attorney. I can tell you that Hunter, maybe more, would likely have been indicted before the 2020 presidential election if he were anybody else but a Biden.
It’s time to depoliticize this investigation and appoint a special counsel to investigate the corruption that appears to run deep in the Biden family.
The evidence on the laptop has been authenticated and implicates numerous members of the Biden family in shady Chinese and overseas business dealings. More than 150 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) appear to have been filed against various Biden family members in multiple countries. Questions of national security and counterintelligence are now being raised.
It seems evident that the Department of Justice and the attorney general are prioritizing politics and containment over justice.
Although we’ve been talking about this laptop for years, corporate media like The New York Times, Washington Post and most legacy networks have only just begun to confirm and report details in recent weeks. The U.S. attorney in Delaware (Biden’s home state) is the office investigating Hunter Biden, and with this intensified media scrutiny, is apparently widening its investigation.
In corruption investigations, however, the optics matter.
In addition to the sordid videos and “big guy” emails on the laptop, we’ve learned that personal income tax returns from 2017 through 2019 that show more than $13.5 million of the Biden family’s $16.7 million in income during that period came from S corporations, but do not detail the sources of those corporate earnings.
Contrary to the political underpinnings, this is not a complex case. In any white-collar investigation, the focus is on “sourcing” funds and the movement of such funds. Scrutinizing the entire Biden family finances should have been the heart of what the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office has been investigating.
The red flags, pun intended, that several million dollars of this money came from a country like China, threaten the integrity of our national security and highlight a level of greed and corruption that is at epic proportions. On the criminal side, depending on the nature and scope of the conspiracy, it is not implausible that the Bidens could be indicted for alleged racketeering.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain recently said that his boss was “confident that his son didn’t break the law” and “confident that his family did the right thing.” In September 2019, candidate Joe Biden said, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” These denials were directly refuted by Hunter Biden’s former business partner and U.S. Navy veteran Tony Bobulinski. Even former Attorney General Bill Barr recently acknowledged that Biden lied about this issue.
While there are those calling for the recusal of Attorney General Merrick Garland, which might be deemed by some as a political victory, it would be substantively irrelevant due to the influence of DOJ on all U.S. attorneys. Even with the breadcrumb trail of evidence on the laptop, no indictments have been issued. Public confidence has eroded.
Given the denials, the lies and the potential magnitude of this corruption, a special counsel must be appointed to set politics aside and investigate this with all the fervor that the country’s fate lies in the balance. If we are unable or unwilling to hold the first family accountable for corruption, then our “rule of law” system is in peril as lady justice is no longer blind.
Instead, she looks favorably upon a chosen few based upon their name, political party, social status, or position in our government.
If the very shallow, now fabricated, evidentiary record regarding the Trumps colluding with Russia, justified the appointment of special counsel Mueller and the use of over $30 million of taxpayer money, imagine trying to argue against appointing a special counsel to investigate the now confirmed contents of the Biden laptop. It wouldn’t even pass the laugh test.
Brett Tolman is the executive director of Right On Crime and former U.S. attorney.
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