Hunter Biden indicted: What are the charges against the US President’s son?

This is the latest in a line of recent attempts from Republicans to demand an investigation into matters related to Hunter Biden, including the launch of an impeachment inquiry against President Biden. Claims of the President being involved in his son’s business dealings and using his positions of influence in government have been made earlier as well. Here’s how the latest move came about and what might happen, with about a year left for the next US Presidential elections.

What is the Hunter Biden indictment about?

According to DW, the president’s son purchased a firearm during a period when he acknowledged struggling with addiction to crack cocaine.

Hunter Biden, who is an attorney and a businessman, has claimed that he wasn’t addicted to or using illegal drugs while checking boxes on a form required for every gun purchase in October 2018. Therefore, it is alleged that Hunter lied on the form and to the shop owner, and ultimately illegally possessed the weapon.

Earlier in July this year, there was an attempt at negotiating a plea deal between Hunter Biden’s legal team and US Attorney and special counsel David Weiss – who was appointed by former US president Donald Trump during his administration. However, the deal later fell apart. Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell has now told ABC News he expected that “the case will be dismissed before trial.”

What other legal issues does Hunter Biden face?

The cases against Hunter Biden are being made during a politically charged period, coming after four indictments against Trump in different courts in the past few months. Those charges ranged from illegal possession of documents to hush money payments using campaign funds.

However, even a conviction in such cases might not result in Trump being disqualified from running for the Presidential elections in 2024. If anything, they seem to have bolstered his popularity further as he is the frontrunner among Republicans hoping to be selected as their party’s candidate for the elections.

Among other issues related to Hunter are charges of failure to pay taxes on time. Weiss said these could be filed in Washington or California, where Biden lives. Perhaps the gravest charge relates to Hunter’s business dealings, in which the president himself profited, according to Republicans. But the evidence for this has been limited and there have been “no massive smoking guns”, as two Senate Republicans had said in their 2020 report.

Another charge against him related to a story by the tabloid news organisation New York Post, which had claimed to release the contents of a laptop owned by Hunter. It said the device contained evidence related to Hunter’s father, then Vice President of the United States, being introduced to a Ukrainian energy company executive. Hunter was a board member of this company.

This suggested a possible conflict of interest because at the time, the US government was helping Ukraine crack down on corruption in Ukrainian companies. According to a report from The Economist, the company whose leader was supposedly introduced to Biden Sr. was also being investigated. But the Ukrainian prosecutor conducting the investigation was later fired by Biden, who was in charge of such efforts within the US government. However, there has been no evidence as such to link his decision to his son’s business interests.

What happens next?

If convicted on all counts, Hunter could face up to 25 years in prison and fines of up to $750,000, according to court filings, reported CNN.

But rather than a simple win/lose verdict in the case, the indictment itself is historic because it is the first of its kind. Supporters of the Bidens believe it to be politically motivated while many Republican voters will see it as a fitting response, given what they see as phony cases against Trump for the same purpose.

The impeachment inquiry opened by Republicans in the US House of Representatives is being seen as another example of this tactic, given the impeachment inquiries initiated against Trump when he was president.

The US Constitution empowers Congress to impeach federal officials, including the president for treason, bribery and “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” A president can be removed from office if the House approves articles of impeachment by a simple majority and the Senate votes by a two-thirds majority to convict after holding a trial. No US president has ever been removed from office in this way to date.

(With inputs from Reuters)