Republicans thought that they had a scandal hat-trick against Hunter Biden, and thus Joe Biden:

* tax evasion / fraud charges
* a gun charge...
* ...stemming from drug use

Republicans were tremendously disappointed and angry when Hunter Biden came within probably twenty minutes of arranging a deal that avoided convictions or jail time on any of the charges by simply settling the tax bill with the IRS plus penalties, entering some sort of recovery program and being on good behavior.

On the tax issues, there isn't that much out of the ordinary involved. Unlike what most of us fear when WE'RE involved or would LIKE when others are involved, the IRS isn't very intent on getting jail sentences. They just want taxes paid. The controversy around Biden's deal was that the terms basically waived the right to pursue charges over any wider timeframe than the events in the original indictment. Some saw that and said AH HA! Favoritism shielding him from possibly earlier tax fraud. Perhaps. But equally likely that the IRS has numerous sources of financial data and has a pretty clear idea taxes HAVE already been paid in the periods PRIOR to this set of incidents and therefore knows there's virtually nothing dollar-wise to gain.

On the gun issue, the Bruen ruling issued by the Supreme Court in 2022 drafted by Federalist Society darling Clarence Thomas already pulled a leg out from under any law attempting to restrict gun ownership rights -- EVEN FOR CONVICTED FELONS. There's another case regarding a law that explicitly uses drug use as a disqualification bubbling up the appellate courts that will also reach the Supreme Court and, as a subset of what they've already decided in Bruen, will likely be tossed out. The DOJ knows this recent history and ORIGINALLY likely decided it wasn't worth charging someone for violations of a law that is arguably already defunct from Bruen. It could be argued that continuing a prosecution via a law already ruled unconstitutional would represent a violation of the prosecutor's oath.

However, once the terms of the original plea deal became public after the judge asked a question and realized the prosecution and defense were not on the same page, the Republican special prosecutor was pressured by Republicans who wanted something on HUNTER Biden to use in tarring JOE Biden and it seems the special prosecutor gave into that pressure. I'm sure talking head experts on conservative media might cite other examples but NO talking head former prosecutor I've seen on non-conservative media has ever seen these gun crimes charged unless the gun was used in another crime.

watchingtheherd.blogspot.com - Despair posters and american justice

As others have stated, the REAL case to be made here would involve influence peddling but the number of facts brought forth to support such charges remains exactly ZERO. For the record, do I think Hunter Biden -- either pre-crack or on-crack -- made representations to people that hiring him would get them listened to in circles of power? Actually yes. Do I think Hunter Biden actually HAD a deal with dad to use such access? No. Do I think Hunter Biden ever attempted to fake his business partners into thinking such a deal was in place? Yup. There seem to be a couple of examples where Hunter would call dad on a speakerphone with partners in the room so they could hear he was really talking to dad but NO ONE, including people in those rooms at the time, have testified that any actual "BUSINESS" was discussed. Just talk about growing up in Scranton, PA or Wilmington, DE or similar boring Biden family chitchat.

WTH