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Defenders of former President Donald Trump have responded to news of his indictment by the US Department of Justice with deflection: Why is Trump being charged but not President Joe Biden’s son Hunter?
“The two standards of justice under Biden’s DOJ is appalling. When will Hunter Biden be charged?” tweeted Rep. Steve Daines of Montana, who has already endorsed Trump’s 2024 campaign and who is in charge of coordinating Republicans’ strategy for keeping control of the House of Representatives.
The facts, however, are much less clear.
Fueling Republicans’ frustration this week is a standoff on Capitol Hill over a document detailing an interview conducted years ago based on a tip given to the DOJ by former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani, you might recall, had been tasked with digging up dirt on the Bidens. House Republicans are convinced the interview with the confidential informant, based on Giuliani’s allegations, implicates both the president and his son.
There’s an awkward circularity in there. Republicans are alleging the FBI under the Biden administration tried to cover up an investigation of a tip given to the FBI by Giuliani during the Trump administration, and which even Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, treated with extreme care.
Here’s what to know:
What do Republicans allege?
That the FBI has been hiding evidence of a bribery allegation that could involve the president and his son receiving $5 million from someone with ties to Ukraine.
Republicans say the evidence comes from an internal law enforcement document, known as an FD-1023, which details an interview conducted with a confidential informant.
It is the one and only allegation that the president has been involved in something illegal. However, it is based on a tip the FBI has not been able to verify.
What’s their basis for this allegation?
Someone Republicans view as a whistleblower told lawmakers on Capitol Hill in May about the form detailing the interview and has alleged the FBI tried to bury it.
Why didn’t the FBI want to hand over the document?
It contains what the FBI calls “unverified” information.
Essentially, anything could lead to an FD-1023 form, which does nothing more than acknowledge an interview took place.
While Republicans are assuming there is a coverup, it does make some sense that if the FBI had gotten a wild claim that it could in no way substantiate, it would not want to give oxygen to that information.
After all, much of Republicans’ gripe with the Russia investigation is that it stemmed from allegations about Trump that could not be verified. For more on that, read about the recently released report from special counsel John Durham, a Trump-administration appointee.
Will lawmakers get to see the document?
Yes. After House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress, the FBI agreed to let all lawmakers on the committee view the FD-1023 form.
Comer and the ranking Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, had already been given access.
After being given that access, Raskin said this whole affair is “part of the effort to smear President Biden and help Mr. Trump’s reelection campaign.”
What are Republicans saying after seeing the document?
After viewing the document, lawmakers confirmed the allegations have to do with Hunter Biden’s business dealings with Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, and the document details conversations over a few years about the allegations and payments made.
Members who viewed the document said the alleged payments to the Bidens are intentionally difficult to be traced.
“If the information contained in this document is true, then there will be absolutely bank records to back it up. And that should be the next phase of the Oversight Committee is to go find and extract those bank records, go back and look at the suspicious activity reports,” said Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
Republicans have an ongoing investigation into the finances of Hunter Biden and other Biden relatives. Read more about that.
How long has the FBI had this document?
For years. In fact, it dates back to the Trump administration.
CNN’s Evan Perez has reported that the document has origins in a tranche of documents that Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.
What has the FBI been doing with the information from the informant?
Barr, when he was Trump’s attorney general, directed then-Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady to oversee the FBI investigation of the Giuliani claims.
According to Perez’s reporting, Barr was worried the unsubstantiated claim could taint the work being done by the US attorney in Delaware who is overseeing a longtime and ongoing investigation of Hunter Biden on numerous fronts.
Brady’s team interviewed the confidential informant on June 30, 2020, which generated the FD-1023. Barr recently told The Federalist the information was ultimately forwarded to the US attorney in Delaware.
Republicans have questioned whether the US attorney there followed up on the allegations made in the interview.
Will Hunter Biden be charged with a crime?
It is definitely possible. Investigations into his business dealings with foreign clients, his failure to pay taxes on time and his purchase of a gun when he was addicted to drugs have all been ongoing. His attorneys met with officials in the Justice Department’s tax division in Washington, DC, in April.
From CNN’s report at the time: According to sources familiar with the investigation, prosecutors are still weighing whether to bring two misdemeanor charges for failure to file taxes, one count of felony tax evasion related to the overreporting of expenses, and a false statement charge regarding a gun purchase.
About Hunter Biden
He has been a top target for Republican investigations for years on multiple fronts. His lifestyle as a drug addict trading on his father’s name to do business overseas is not a good reflection on his father. The money he and other Bidens made from foreign companies is just as uncomfortable for the president.
There are other Hunter Biden-related threads. He has been ordered to appear next month in an Arkansas courtroom to explain why he should not be held in contempt for stonewalling attempts to obtain his financial data. He denies wrongdoing. The court proceedings are underway because his attorneys say he can no longer afford to pay $20,000 in monthly child support.
But there’s a false equivalence between comparing his affairs, which still ultimately rely on unverified claims forwarded to the FBI by Giuliani, and Trump’s treatment of classified data, which the Department of Justice apparently feels confident it can prosecute.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misidentified the whistleblower who made Republican lawmakers aware of the FD-1023 form.