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Federal agents investigating Hunter Biden believe they have gathered enough evidence to charge the first son with tax crimes as well as a false statement related to a gun purchase, according to a new report.
The final decision on whether to bring a case against the 52-year-old will be made by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who was appointed to the post by former President Donald Trump.
The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the investigation, reported that agents had determined months ago that they had assembled a viable criminal case against Hunter Biden.
The newspaper reported that the investigation, which started by focusing on Hunter’s overseas business dealings, has shifted to whether he reported all his income from foreign transactions — as well as whether he lied about his history of substance abuse on a firearm purchase form in 2018.
Hunter Biden himself announced in December 2020 that his “tax affairs” were being investigated by federal authorities in Delaware, and said he was “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”
At some point after that announcement, the first son paid off a tax bill totaling around $2 million.
The probe kicked off in 2018, when investigators started looking at whether Hunter and his business associates violated various tax and money laundering laws during their dealings in China and other countries.
The investigation was reportedly briefly put on hold ahead of the 2020 presidential election due to federal guidelines that prohibit activity that could influence a political race.
Meanwhile, questions surrounding Hunter’s gun purchase surfaced after Delaware State Police and the FBI launched an investigation in late 2018 following a bizarre incident involving him and his sister-in-law-turned-lover, Hallie Biden.
According to a Politico report last year, Hallie took her then-partner’s gun and tossed it into a trash can across from a high school because she feared he was going to kill himself.
Hallie reported the gun missing after she returned to retrieve it but found it had already vanished.
As cops were probing whether the gun had been used in any crimes after it went missing, Secret Service agents reportedly tried to intervene and contacted the owner of the store where Hunter bought the gun and asked to take the paperwork that recorded the sale.
The store owner, Ron Palmieri, eventually handed over the sale information to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which oversees federal gun laws.
A copy of the Oct. 12, 2018, gun transaction form subsequently revealed that Hunter had answered “No” to the question asking, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
Hunter had been discharged from the Navy Reserve five years earlier after testing positive for cocaine and admitted in his own memoir, released last year, that he was addicted to crack around the time he bought the gun.
Lying on a federal gun purchase form is a felony.
In a written statement to the Washington Post on Thursday, Hunter Biden attorney Chris Clark accused investigators of leaking information from ongoing grand jury proceedings.