To hear President Joe Biden\u2019s supporters tell it, Hunter Biden was finally held accountable Tuesday, and the long national nightmare of him facing any scrutiny at all can finally end.<\/p>\n

This accountability for the president\u2019s son, however, was little more than a chiding for offenses that have virtually nothing to do with the serious allegations the Department of Justice should actually be pursuing \u2014 like giving a speeding ticket to \u201cthe getaway driver after a bank robbery,\u201d George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley\u00a0 remarked<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over the past two weeks alone, congressional Republicans have revealed a paid, \u201chighly credible\u201d FBI informant\u2019s report that $10 million was paid in bribes to Hunter and his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, by Ukrainian oligarch and Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky.<\/p>\n

Zlochevsky called the then-vice president \u201cthe big guy,\u201d a nickname also used in the Biden family\u2019s allegedly corrupt China dealings. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa,\u00a0 revealed<\/a>\u00a0the existence of two audio recordings Zlochevsky reportedly made of Joe Biden (and another 15 he made of Hunter) discussing their dealings, which Zlochevsky reportedly kept as a sort of \u201cinsurance policy\u201d that he\u2019d get what he was paying for.<\/p>\n

What was he paying for?\u00a0 Emails<\/a>\u00a0from the chairman of Burisma (revealed three years ago) show \u201cthe ultimate purpose\u201d of \u201cthe deliverables\u201d was \u201cto close down for any cases\/pursuits against [Burisma\u2019s president] in Ukraine.\u201d That case was indeed closed down, when Vice President Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor pursuing Burisma.<\/p>\n

Congressional investigators also revealed that Hunter helped Burisma executives open an account for their transactions at Satabank, a Maltese bank closed down two years later by the Maltese government for \u201cgross deficiencies\u201d in policing money laundering and following laws on terrorist financing. Some of the government\u2019s suspicions involved the banks dealings with Burisma, which prosecutors said smacked of money laundering.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Again: This is over the past two weeks alone.<\/p>\n

But Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, says all this new news is actually old news, and anyway, former Attorney General Bill Barr\u2019s handpicked guy shut down these investigations years ago.<\/p>\n

According to Barr himself, that\u2019s not true at all: \u201cOn the contrary,\u201d\u00a0 he told<\/a>\u00a0The Federalist, \u201cit was sent to Delaware for further investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby isn\u2019t concerned about accusations of foreign bribery either,\u00a0 telling<\/a>\u00a0The Daily Caller that the reports don\u2019t worry him (though he also says he hasn\u2019t read them).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Democratic Oversight member Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., doesn\u2019t think there\u2019s anything for Congress to look into,\u00a0 telling<\/a>\u00a0Fox News\u2019 John Roberts that the House Oversight Committee should take a back seat to investigations of presidential corruption and let the FBI take the wheel.<\/p>\n

But while\u00a0 a June poll<\/a>\u00a0by the Trafalgar Group found more than half of those surveyed think the Biden family has taken bribes from foreign nationals, the FBI doesn\u2019t really want to talk about it. Congressional Republicans had to begin contempt proceedings against FBI Director Christopher Wray to elicit any cooperation at all, and even then the FBI redacted mention of the audio recordings (from a document that\u00a0 isn\u2019t even classified<\/a>), and made committee members view it in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth repeating: All of this has happened in the past two weeks alone.<\/p>\n

So what is the much-vaunted Department of Justice doing, anyway? The DOJ wrote in\u00a0 a Tuesday letter<\/a>\u00a0to a Wilmington court that Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two tax offenses, and \u201chas agreed to enter a Pretrial Diversion Agreement\u201d for lying on a gun application and possessing an illegal firearm.<\/p>\n

To summarize, Hunter Biden is accused of foreign influence peddling and taking (and coordinating) bribes for himself, his uncle, and his powerful father to the tune of millions of dollars. He (and his father, who was then vice president) are accused of working to shut down an investigation into a Ukrainian oligarch\u2019s oil company by getting the prosecutor fired. And today, the DOJ accepted a guilty plea on what The Washington Post calls \u201ctwo minor tax crimes,\u201d and admitted to the basic facts around the gun case, agreeing to enter \u201cdiversion programs\u201d and serve two years probation.<\/p>\n

At long last, Hunter Biden is in the clear. He has answered for his crimes, and his father has shown his commitment to the rule of law and the principle that no man is above the law. It\u2019s all over.<\/p>\n

At least that\u2019s what Hunter\u2019s legal team reportedly thinks, according to\u00a0 CBS<\/a>. And it fits with congressional Democrats\u2019 long-running claims that there\u2019s nothing to see here, and even if there is it\u2019s already been investigated and it\u2019s fine, so let\u2019s move on.<\/p>\n

\u201cA thousand GOP hacks,\u201d Substacker Matt Yglesias\u00a0 tweeted<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday morning, \u201c[are] crying in their soup over the loss of their dearly beloved \u2018what about Hunter Biden\u2019 talking points.\u201d After all, how can anyone complain of a double standard for one former president getting raided and arrested, while another president\u2019s kid gets off with a deal? (For added spice, former President Donald Trump\u2019s court date was announced the same day the DOJ announced its deal with Hunter.)<\/p>\n

Maybe there\u2019s more coming. After all, investigations take time. Indeed, the U.S. attorney for Delaware has contradicted Hunter\u2019s team\u2019s expectations,\u00a0 telling<\/a>\u00a0Fox News that \u201cthe investigation is ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more than a little reason to be skeptical that anything will come of it. The investigations of Hunter Biden have been so plagued by delays and slow-walking and irregular investigative activity, whistleblowers from both the IRS and the FBI have come forward complaining to Congress. It took these whistleblowers and the documents they produced, plus the legitimate threat of contempt, to force the FBI to offer Congress the scantest of cooperation.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s plea deal is the equivalent of taking a watering can to a house fire and calling yourself a firefighter. They will do that anyway, of course. Far from a sign of justice to come, expect today\u2019s ruling to serve as a cudgel for Biden partisans across the DOJ and the corporate media to hit outraged (and out-of-power) Republicans with. Justice served, indeed.<\/p>\n

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