Legal scholar Jonathan Turley of George Washington University slammed Attorney General Merrick Garland’s handling of the Hunter Biden case during a Fox News appearance Friday.
Speaking on Fox News’ “America Reports,” he noted that nothing about Garland’s handling of the case makes any sense.
“The problem that Garland has is that much of this investigation just doesn’t fit very well logically. They spent five years to charge violations that you could have established in the first month,” he said.
As previously reported, this week President Joe Biden’s youngest son, Hunter, pleaded guilty to several minor crimes. The sweetheart plea deal prompted massive confusion given as the DOJ had spent five+ years investigating him.
What did the DOJ investigate for five years with regard to Hunter Biden? Because two counts of “willful failure to pay federal income tax” and one count of “possession of a firearm by unlawful user of a controlled substance” probably could’ve been investigated in about five hours
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 20, 2023
To make matters worse, after the plea deal was announced, two IRS whistleblowers came forward claiming that the investigation into Hunter had been impeded by the actions of higher-ups within the DOJ.
Of course, the IRS whistleblowers may just be lying partisan actors. But Turley doesn’t think that’s the case.
“Now, we haven’t been able to, obviously, authenticate this information, but what we do know is that these are people that made statements to congressional investigators under the threat of prosecution if they lie. And that comes with an element of credibility. It doesn’t mean you have to accept it as true,” he said.
He added that the same holds true of a WhatsApp message that the IRS whistleblowers uncovered. Sent by Hunter to a Chinese official in 2017, in the message he essentially threatened the official, saying either pay up or his father (Joe Biden) would get involved.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 23, 2023
“The same thing…about this message. There’s no authentication, but these are chilling statements that are coming from two respected federal employees who are now whistleblowers,” Turley said.
He concluded his remarks by stressing again that Garland’s handling of the case simply doesn’t make sense.
“The problem that Garland has is that much of this investigation just doesn’t fit very well logically. They spent five years to charge violations that you could have established in the first month. And notably, it doesn’t include a FARA violation. So, just take that message for a second, if that’s authentic, the question again, is what happened to FARA?” he said.
“The Department of Justice charged various people during the Trump administration with being unregistered foreign agents, including Paul Manafort, whose case seems strikingly similar to this one, but there’s nary a mention of it in any of this,” he added.
Listen to his remarks below:
He made a valid point about FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
“Hunter likely violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) while negotiating lucrative business deals with entities in China, Mexico, Romania, Russia and Ukraine during and after Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president,” the New York Post notes.
“The then-second son visited his father at least 30 times at the Obama White House and at Joe Biden’s Delaware home, often within days of meetings with foreign nationals, according to schedules found on his abandoned laptop,” according to the Post.
Meanwhile, other emails from Hunter’s infamous laptop suggest he “passed along funding requests to then-Vice President Biden from the crown prince of Yugoslavia and the crown princess of Serbia, as well as peddled access to his influential father to cash in on construction contracts in Colombia.”
“If Hunter relayed the request for US government assistance then that would be a FARA-registrable event,” FARA expert Craig Engle previously told the Post.
Dovetailing back to Turley, he also dropped a Post column this week listing “all the [additional] crimes” that Hunter’s sweetheart plea deal didn’t include/mention.
The NY Post is out with my column on the Hunter Biden plea deal and the curious omission of crimes like FARA violations. https://t.co/jyUJfWGaGV
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 21, 2023
“Hunter also never faced any charges after videotaping himself engaged in interstate violations involving a host of prostitutes and drugs. That is now simply material for his scrapbook,” he wrote.
“The most notable omission is the failure of any apparent investigation into the expanding scandal surrounding the influence-peddling operation of the Biden family,” he added.
That’s the big one.
“Despite the release of evidence by the House Oversight Committee showing potentially millions of transfers to Biden family members from foreign sources, Attorney General Merrick Garland has blocked any appointment of a special counsel,” Turley wrote.
“This refusal has continued even with references to President Biden as ‘the big guy’ who was supposed to receive a percentage of the deals and the recent disclosure of bribery allegations by a trusted FBI source,” he added.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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