Former President George W. Bush Justice Department official John Yoo said he would be shocked if Hunter Biden manages to avoid prison time with his proposed Thursday plea.
Hunter Biden is trying to shift his plea in his federal tax case which was scheduled to begin jury selection Thursday in California, according to multiple reports. Yoo, on “Outnumbered,” noted that given Hunter Biden’s alleged failure to pay around $1 million in taxes, it’s unlikely he can escape serving prison time, predicting he may face at least one year behind bars.
WATCH:
Former DOJ Official Says He’d ‘Be Very Surprised’ If Hunter Biden Gets ‘Away With No Time Served’ pic.twitter.com/3Lp5JEhzvZ
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 5, 2024
“I think you could see one to three years. I would be very surprised if the Justice Department let him get away with no time served at all,” Yoo said. “You’re talking about someone who didn’t pay a million dollars in taxes … So, remember, there’s another $20 million that whistle-blowers from the IRS say came in from foreign sources into Hunter. He still could be investigated for being a foreign agent. There’s lots of things he could still be investigated for.”
Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison for nine charges, including three felonies, pertaining to his alleged failure to pay over $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2019. Instead of paying his taxes, prosecutors allege he spent his sizable income on an “extravagant lifestyle,” including “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature.”
Special counsel David Weiss’ team suggested in court filings that they plan to have one of Hunter Biden’s business associates testify about money he obtained from a Romanian businessman who was striving to “influence U.S. policy and public opinion.”
“Usually the Justice Department will offer you a pretty sweet deal if you plead, but if you go to trial, they’ll throw the book at you and go for maximum sentences. But this is a in political context now where lawfare has become one of the important issues,” Yoo said earlier in the segment. “This is a case where at the same time, on this very day, the special counsel is going after Trump, all guns blazing despite being smacked back as hard as you could be by the Supreme Court.”
“And then on the other hand, you’re going to see Hunter Biden maybe get a very sweet plea deal from the very same Justice Department,” he added. “And so I think this is all an effort to remove lawfare as a political issue by the Biden-Harris Administration.”
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