Below is my column in the Messenger on the curious role of Hunter Biden as the “designated defendant” of the Biden family. Throughout the years of influence peddling and millions in transfers to various Biden associates and family members, Hunter remained the frontman. He is now expected to face accountability for these dealings. He even complained to his daughter in 2019 that he was being sued. Telling her that “It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike Pop [Joe], I won’t make you give me half your salary.” While he will get off light, he will be expected to take 100 percent of any accountability as his father repeatedly says how “proud” he is of his son.
Here is the column:
The reported plea bargain for Hunter Biden was of little surprise to many of us. Indeed, a year ago, I described these very counts as a way to carry out a “controlled demolition” of this scandal.
Hunter Biden is, on many levels, a hapless figure of a man, devoured by destructive addictions and appetites. Yet the most tragic aspect of Hunter’s life may be his apparent role as the designated defendant of the Biden family. He allegedly became the conduit for what House Republican investigators say was potentially millions of dollars from influence-peddling, including possible payments to his uncle, the widow of his deceased brother, and even Biden grandchildren.
In the law, the “designated defendant” is often a chump who is given some impressive title, a good salary, and the authority to sign reports or filings for a corporation.
Hunter was clearly more than a simple dupe, but he never had much to offer beyond his name and access to his father.
Many have noted that Hunter Biden was an implausible business associate or board member to be working with various foreign companies. He had lived a life that was a toxic mix of nepotism and narcotics, by his own admission. According to his 2021 memoir, during the period when foreign companies were clamoring to give him millions of dollars, he was “drinking a quart of vodka a day” and “smoking crack around the clock.” He kept up that self-destructive lifestyle, he said, until his father’s 2020 presidential campaign began.
When Hunter’s world began to collapse financially, his uncle, James (who has been implicated in influence-peddling in news reports and by House investigators) rushed to assure him that he and his father were arranging a “safe harbor” for him, according to one media report. The alarm over Hunter cutting off contact was understandable as a family matter in dealing with a relative with a history of drug addiction. Yet Hunter also potentially represented something of a threat to a family that has long been accused of influence-peddling.
Hunter has relied on his family and his father’s political associates to protect him. He reportedly paid his delinquent taxes with the help of a wealthy friend; other unnamed individuals paid huge sums for his art work.
When Hunter’s gun disappeared near a school and local authorities were investigating, the Secret Service mysteriously showed up at a gun shop and asked for the paperwork tying him to the gun.
When Hunter lost a laptop reportedly filled with incriminating emails detailing criminal conduct with drugs, as well as alleged evidence of influence-peddling, national security experts rushed forward to declare it was likely to be Russian disinformation. Much of the media joined with an effective news blackout of the story. The FBI then allegedly sat on the laptop and did not appear to do a thing to investigate further.
At every juncture, the wayward son of Joe Biden seems to be snatched from the jaws of disaster.
Now, at the center of a swirling scandal of alleged influence-peddling, Hunter has emerged with a plea that brings a new meaning to the word “bargain.”
He will plead guilty to two minor misdemeanor tax counts and a phantom felony count that will go away in time.
Yet this may be the most vital role that Hunter has played for his family. He will declare himself guilty so the media and the political establishment can declare the scandal to be a closed matter: Nothing more to see here, other than a plea to a couple misdemeanors.
This is why betting against the Bidens in a corruption scandal is like betting for The Generals against the Harlem Globetrotters. The plea agreement already is being heralded by the Biden team as the final resolution of any Hunter Biden investigation.
The hope is that Hunter takes the hit for the family. He will avoid jail time, and his father can avoid a political scandal.
In his memoir, Promises to Keep, Joe Biden wrote about how he once asked Hunter, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Hunter responded, “I want to be important.”
Like much else about Hunter’s life, that statement now seems tragic on a Shakespearean level. Hunter allegedly was key to bringing in millions of dollars in exchange for influence with and access to his father. He is now taking a plea to tie off a scandal threatening his family. He is the designated defendant who will stand in the dock and take the hit. In that perfect Bidenesque moment, he will plead guilty to not paying taxes but avoid answering questions on how he made his money.
The plea deal also avoids the charge that the White House most feared: a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Despite the striking similarities with the past FARA cases, like that of Paul Manafort, there is no allegation that Hunter was an illegal foreign agent. If this is the final “resolution” as claimed by Hunter’s counsel, it also is the ideal resolution for the Biden family.
Hunter has finally achieved his childhood dream. There is a host of people, from his family to foreign officials around the world, who will bear witness to that. Hunter Biden finally is important.
Jonathan Turley, an attorney, constitutional law scholar and legal analyst, is the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School.
Has the DNC has taken over Pakistan? It is reported that on May 9, 2023, the current government of Pakistan arrested former prime minister Imran Khan on charges of “corruption”. https://thespectator.com/topic/imran-khan-conspiracy-pakistan-shehbaz-sharif/ It is not known yet if Khan also had classified documents. Probably did.
If you are able to go back and watch The Wire, your eyes will be opened about how a syndicate operates. The minion low level drug dealers were expected to take the fall for the big guys. They were wiling to do it because the big guys promised to take care of their momma when the went upstate. The police and the Democratic politicians were all in on the graft. They knew better than to “F” with the big guy. Just like Joe said, nobody “Fs”with a Biden. It’s all ok if their leader is a Gangsta. One more thing. In The Wire when one of their own doesn’t go along with the program he would end up dead. Hunter should make sure that he walks right to keep from wearing a pair of cement galoshes. There may be a prediction in this last sentence. Gangstas do what Gangstas do and their supporters on this blog are willing to be the fall guys to receive their crust of bread. You know the names.
“The Designated Defendant” v. “The Patsy”
The Deep Deep State Swamp has engaged in political/jurisprudential prestidigitation since the “Reign of Terror” of “Crazy Abe” Lincoln commenced the incremental implementation of the principles of communism in America.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961
“I’m just a patsy,” Lee Harvey Oswald, November 22, 1963.
https://youtu.be/NR7JJHqD7_c
https://youtu.be/LvgT4rvQH1g
One might ask. Isn’t all that money that folks donated to bail Hunter out financially taxable as income for him? Is the IRS still in on this corruption? Silly question.
Come on,,,, Really? The biden family is a crime syndicate 50+ years in the making and Hunter is the designated fall guy?
Blind fool that you are!
A chip off the old block.
There is too much going on in this saga to encapsulate in a comment, a column, a book, or even an encyclopedia but I am astounded by those who maintain there is nothing to see here. It’s all fabricated to protect Trump, or….whatever.
It takes only a couple of bits of evidence, mentioned rarely by anyone, to demonstrate plenty of there here. First, read Peter Schweizer’s book “Profiles in Corruption”. Its chapter(s) on the Bidens is a meticulously documented examination of an exceptionally troubled family with problems of irresponsible, narcissistic and illegal behavior going back at least into the 1990s. Whole family. Hunter is not the troubled victim of trauma and the documentation is from public records including that so-called, self-labelled newspaper of record.
Second, There are something like 170 SARs. It would take about one SAR involving me and those Elliot Ness types would have brought me in to explain myself but with the Bidens 170 SARs can’t get the wheels of justice to groan into motion.
Never mind the dozens of shell companies with no physical presense and no records that establish any sort of legitimate activity. Zig-zagging trails of money. Payments to grandchildren … please don’t pull my leg any further.
‘U.S. Attorney Weiss was appointed by Trump’ – seems to be the singular official WH/DoJ response .. . evidently, suggesting Hunter’s ‘sweetheart’ deal with Biden’s DoJ was cunningly orchestrated by Trump Himself. Or Putin.
Looking on the bright side, one can only put lipstick on a pig for so long until you’re swimming in pig sh!t.
*pull my finger
Love how this mother put it into clear and proper perspective in her reply to NYT Nicholas Kristof’s absurd article trying to spin Hunter’s criminality and debauchery as being about a father’s unconditional love for a son stuggling with demons of addiction:
My son struggled with addiction and eventually lost his life, but addiction never made him descend into depravity, use and abuse women as sexual objects, deny his own child, or engage in large scale financial corruption. Hunter Biden’s problem is that he’s a wretched human being.
@JoanneMason11
Nick Kristoff should be embarrassed that he published such slop in NYT. Here is another perfect reply to Kristof’s stupid opinion piece:
@julie_kelly2
Nope The corruption fueled his addictions—which makes his father even more contemptible. Biden sold his son’s soul, body, and mind to enrich himself. His lavish lifestyle was made possible by leveraging his last name with FULL CONSENT AND KNOWLEDGE of his father.
Hunter as the “fall guy” certainly seems plausible. The extraordinarily dangerous thing in all of this is the willingness of Democrats and their sympathizers—most of the federal bureaucracy, the media, social media, Big Tech, etc.—to ignore all of this and not be outraged. For them, the leftist agenda is far more important than the incongruence of supporting a corrupt President, so they blow smoke, pretending that it’s just a Republican witch hunt. It doesn’t occur to them that accepting blatant corruption in their leaders and corruption in the application and prosecution of the law inevitably leads to a corrupted, dysfunctional society that will descend into chaos and likely revolution. Everything is just fine with them.
And in other news, Jack Smith is moving quickly in turning over discovery docs, including a list of 84(!) possible witnesses for Trump’s trial. Now it’s on Trump’s attorneys to get their security clearances.
Fall guy? You cannot be serious. If Hunter is now the definition of a fall guy; committing over 400 criminal offences worldwide, many of the felonies, preserving the act of their commission on video and in text, having those videos and texts verified by the FBI, yet only “suffering” a “punishment” of two misdemeanors and a minor felony gun charge that *will* be dropped and expunged from his record after two short years of, ahem, “probation,” then let’s all be “Fall Guys.” Not to mention the fact that he will be clear to legally own and possess firearms after that two years.
Fall guy…….please, don’t insult our intelligence, Jonathan.
I don’t buy that Jonathan, Not at All.
Joe Biden is a Veteran Capitol Hill Politician, to say that His Son has always been “The Fall Guy” while all long being the Cronie for the “Big Guy” is preposterous. Hunter was wearing diapers while His Father was slithering around the Hill grafting the payola to satisfy his demented Greed.
I will buy, Hunter is an A.C.O.A. [Adult Child of an Alcoholic & Dysfunctional Family] wherein he learned the behavior his Parents (Joe Biden) taught him. Even now supposedly ‘post-therapy’ Hunter is out pedaling himself again in the D.C. Social Dilettante circles. [e.g.: He back at the Bottle chugging away]
https://nypost.com/2023/06/22/hunter-biden-merrick-garland-to-attend-wh-state-dinner-amid-alleged-doj-coverup-in-tax-fraud-case/
And another thing, all this Hunter distraction does, is take away the spotlight from the Clinton’s ‘Power-Couple of Influence Peddling’ and Russian Gate dealings.
Hunter is and always has been a ‘Distraction’, sure He’s been a Dysfunctional Bad-Boy, but he’ll never be sent to the Kitchen to do the Dishes (Punished).
There are some Adults that have committed SERIOUS crimes and malefactions of which They should be held accountable. [Clintons, Bidens, etc ….]
From journalist Tom Elliott,
The more we learn about the 2020 election, the more undeniable it becomes that Biden owes his “victory” to blatant political corruption. To wit:
1) An IRS probe into the Bidens money laundering payments from hostile nations — the normal outcome of which would have ended his candidacy — was instead given a stand-down order
2) The FBI & IRS wanted to search Biden’s house in September 2020 but were given a stand down order.
3) The @FBI authenticated Hunter’s laptop a year before the NYPost first reported on its contents
4) Rather than use the laptop’s voluminous documentation of myriad felonies to initiate criminal investigations, the FBI hatched a plot to warn social media companies of an imminent “hack & leak” operation of what they heavily suggested was Russian disinformation
5) The FBI used its 2016 Russia collusion probe — which the Durham probe has since proven was essentially an extension of the Clinton campaign — to rationalize its meddling in the 2020 election.
6) The FBI also conducted an influence operation with various reporters at major newspapers to convince them that forthcoming damaging reporting about Biden that they knew was true was in fact not
7) The FBI was spying on Giuliani when he shared the laptop’s contents with the NYPost
8) When the FBI told Twitter & Facebook a Russian disinformation campaign was coming, they had already concluded Russia wasn’t trying to game the election
9) In their attempt to corroborate their own rumor of Russian electoral influence, the FBI became aggressive with its demands for user data from Twitter, eventually getting shutdown for seeking users’ private info without a warrant
10) Nonetheless, in the preceding years, the FBI established a beachhead inside Twitter, with an operations center of former agents who communicated via their own dedicated slack channel. These ex-agents included Jim Baker, the FBI’s former top counsel who played a central role in the FBI’s Trump/Russia scam, as well as Comey’s former chief of staff, Dawn Burton, who started the FBI’s Russia collusion probe.
11) The CIA, in collusion with the Biden campaign, seeded disinformation claiming the laptop was itself Russian disinformation. The major media used this as a pretext to avoid reporting on its contents and instead attack those who were.
12) The FBI also arranged a meeting with Sens. Grassley & Johnson about supposed Russian disinformation & Hunter Biden.
13) The FBI then used this briefing with the senators to justify quashing their own agents’ probe into the Bidens’ corruption.
14) When the story broke mere weeks before the election — one that polling later indicated would have altered enough Democrat votes to send Trump to a second term — Twitter & Facebook orchestrated an unprecedented & anti-democratic mass censorship campaign.
15) When Twitter initially resisted censoring the story, it was Jim Baker who convinced them to do so (despite the FBI having known for a year the informartion was true).
16) In December 2020, after the operation’s success and Biden’s “victory,” the FBI agents working at & with Twitter celebrated the outcome.
17) The FBI subsequently paid Twitter $3.5 million for the staff hours expended on their influence operations.
18) At the time Trump was being impeached for asking Ukraine to investigate Biden’s alleged corruption in Ukraine, the FBI & IRS already knew the Bidens had indeed laundered more than $10 million from Burisma, via fake companies and dozens of bank accounts, while at the same time VP Biden had used U.S. aid as leverage in getting the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma fired.
P.S. And that’s to say nothing of Democrats orchestrating a state-by-state campaign to change voting rules to enable the widespread adoption of voting boxes … Left-wing activist groups, funded in part by Facebook, facilitated the exploitation of these drop-off boxes on behalf of the Democratic Party. That part may not have been illegal since they simply changed the rules, but it’s especially shady since it was done alongside federal health agencies then-knowingly overstating the threat of Covid, which was used as the rationale for the change of rules in the first place.
P.P.S. And this is just what we know despite the feds’ best efforts. Imagine how much we don’t.
Excellent synopsis, Upstate. Your comment should be nailed to the front door of the DOJ.
Diogenes,
Ah, no, was not me. Journalist Tom Elliott gets the credit.
pic.twitter.com/bHu49qGUST
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 24, 2023
Thank you for providing this wonderful synopsis, Upstate Farmer!
Why is it that anyone would beleive these liars and their minions about the 2020 election, about election fraud, about covid, about anything related to trump, about January 6.
Trust is earned.
The people who have shilled this nonsense are not entitle dot be trusted about anything.
Trump is far from perfect.
But he is more trustworthy than any politician – possibly ever.
I disagree with him on many issues.
But I KNOW that when he says he will do something – he will move mountaints to try to do so, and against all odds, most of the time succeed.
Contra the claims of the left – Trump is TRUSTWORTHY,
They are not.
Upstate– it reads like an indictment. Too bad it never will read as an actual indictment. The obvious fact is that Biden, the Democrat party leaders and the media are corrupt to the core. In addition to financial wealth, their corruption has gained them increasing power by allowing them to ignore and then systematically dismantle each of the policies, traditions and institutions that once made America great. I hope it is not but it may be too late to turn back.
Did you catch Nancy Pelosi over on MSLSD talking to Jen Psaki (regime propaganda spreader) about the need for “integrity” and “ethics” in DC…specifically the courts…..while outrageously besmirching Justice Clarence Thomas’s integrity?
Pelosi is a ruthless, unhinged, sociopath. But I suppose if someone admires a woman who rose to power and held onto power for this long by being completely unethical, immoral, dishonest, underhanded, unscrupulous, lawless, ruthless, authoritarian, intransigent, unprincipled, crooked, and corrupt, then….okay then, admire away.
Dont forget all the times she or her family members made stunningly brilliant stock market moves just before some new legislation was introduced.
And that it was Pelosi who would not bring the bill to the floor making it illegal for Congress persons, or their family members from trading on what is Congress insider information.
Exactly! Glenn Greenwald calls her The Queen of Congressional Stock Trading.
Psycho Pelosi actually said this in her interview with Psaki: “I had one justice tell me he thought the other justices were people of integrity….like a Clarence Thomas….and I’m like, ‘Get out of here.’ ”
Outrageous personal smear.
Hey Nancy! Y’all got your hands full of your own ginormous ethics problems, what with the Biden crime family, Adam Schiff, and golly gee, pretty much the entire Democrat caucus. But, but, but….look over there!!
Nancy Pelosi puts Merrill lynch to sham. She’s much better at trading securities than a big brokerage house.
You know how it is – projection all the way down.
On point #18, just think, as Trump was being impeached for his phone call with the former Ukrainian President, the DOJ and FBI had Biden’s laptop and knew the information on the laptop was real. They knew the Bidens had laundered money through country and they did not inform Trump’s lawyers. Instead, they worked to hide that information from both Trump and the voters.
How is that not an obstruction of justice?
Upstate, Thank you for that!
UF: Great list. Thank you.
What did Obama know and when did he know it? The guy placed Biden as point man for Ukraine and Biden turned the country into an ATM for him and his crooked family and does anyone think that the intelligent services during that time didn’t let Obama know what was going on? Come on, man.
Ask yourself why Obama was trying to get Joe to not run. Ask yourself why Obama held off supporting HIS OWN VP for so long. Ask yourself why Obama was willing to let this crooked loser have countries like Ukraine, China, Russia and Romania in is portfolio. Why not Belgium, Iceland, Great Britain, France or IRELAND for the crook? Nope, only countries that would allow the Bidens to make millions and millions from crooked lands.
So far, Hunter has done almost no falling in his role as fall guy. He has received no prison time, while his financial obligations will be covered by a friend of the family.
At some point in the future, after being arrested for a state crime or a yet-to-be committed federal crime, Hunter will be confronted with choice of serious prison time for himself or ratting out the old man. Only then will we see how dedicated Hunter is to the fall guy role foisted upon him by the fold man.
anyone answer why Republicans gave Democrats trillions last week for the endless waves of crimes?
the problem isn’t the Bidens….the PROBLEM is the Checks and Balances in DC are DEAD
We are 100% Fascist State…with a 100% corrupt DOJ, FBI, Congress, IRS, etc FOR DEMOCRATS
Jonathan: So what else is of importance in the news this Sunday morning? On Saturday Donald Trump gave a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual conference. Jack Smith’s legal team is paying close attention to everything Trump says about the 37-count criminal indictment–hoping Trump will further incriminate himself. They were not disappointed. Trump said the following at the F &F conference: “Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the absolute right to take them. He has the absolute right to keep them or he can give them back to NARA if he wants…That’s the law and it couldn’t be more clear”.
Boy, Trump knows how to put his foot farther down his mouth! The law “couldn’t be more clear”. No president is entitled to take official documents with him after he leaves office and he can’t refuse to return them. No doubt Jack Smith will use this further incriminating statement at trial to show Trumped INTENDED to violate the law. It was not just inadvertence.
If Trump was really smart he would listen to his attorneys who have no doubt told him to refrain from making public statements about the indictment and the coming trial. But Trump doesn’t take legal advice. He only listens to his delusional advisor Tom Fitton, who is not a lawyer– and his narcissistic demons! Trump is on self-destruct mode these days.
Dennis is desperate to change the subject. I wonder why???
Diogenes,
Well said.
Seems lately, with all the whistleblower evidence mounting up, our leftists friends are desperate to post misinformation, disinformation or out right lies.
Or, change the subject.
🙂
They have no shame, Upstate.
Dennis: read the Presidential Records Act, the President determines what is his paperwork.
Dennis is not allowed to read anything other than what xe/xer is paid to read, copy and paste: the daily Media Matters / DNC talking points™
The DNC talking points memo goes out at 10:00 a.m. each day (11:00 on Sunday), so you can usually expect the comments such as that from Dennis to hit the comment boards of any political site a few minutes afterwards.
You know, I assume, that the interplay between the PRA and the nefarious Espionage Act is a matter of one legal opinion versus another, right? And that what documents are personal to the President and what documents are “official” has always been a negotiated question between the President and the NA since the PRA became law?
If Trump believes he can’t lose that negotiation, he’s wrong… but that it is a negotiation is a matter of historical record.
How can the President lose
Professor Turley writes, “Like much else about Hunter’s life, that statement now seems tragic on a Shakespearean level.”
I would add that it’s comic on an HBO level. The miniseries, Succession, was HBO’s attempt to satire and insult Fox News. Succession was about a powerful man who tries to throw his drug-addicted son under the bus because it’s highly plausible to blame everything on a drunk, regardless of what the drunk claims. Kinda sounds like Joe and Hunter, don’t it?
Life imitates art. It’s just as many of our commentors have noted over the years on this blog: “If the Democrats accuse you of something, it’s because they are already guilty.” Apparently, the groomers at HBO are happy to dramatize those accusations.
In real life, the fall guy was originally intended to be Tony Bobulinski, but Tony–being an honest and intelligent man–figured it out and quit, taking the Biden text messages with him as a first line of defense.
John Paul Mac Isaac, the computer repairman who found the Biden laptop, also kept copies for similar reasons.
Nobody trusts the Bidens. I wonder why?
Much to the horror of both men, the crime family wasn’t going away. Rather, Joe was vying for control of the Deep State.
Both Tony and John Paul feared Arkancide, so they finally went to the New York Post. Unfortunately, Joe was elected anyway, with the help of politically corrupt CIA officials. Just for the record, James Clapper and John Brennan should be restroom attendants in a prison somewhere.
Back to Hunter. Hunter also kept his emails to make sure his father didn’t go all “Succession” on him, but Hunter fumbled the ball. Lucky for the crime family, the DOJ was refereeing the game. Now the Deep State defiantly commits obvious coverups in broad daylight. Talk about mission creep.
Tony and John Paul are still waiting for the other shoe to drop. God save them.
God save us all.
Impressive commentary, Diogenes. Any predictions?
Catherine, you’re an attorney, so you might know better than me about this, but I’m suspecting Garland will say a public official refusing to do anything about a possible crime is not itself a crime. He’ll punt the Biden scandals to the 2024 election because the Democrats think they can get Trump the nomination, and Trump will lose the general election. As far as they are concerned, Trump–the man–is now their “insurance policy.”
That’s what I’m suspecting, but when it comes to the law, the devil is in the details. Professor Turley seems to suspect there might be crimes here. Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Ryan Girdusky believes it’s going to be either Joe or Kamala for the Democrat nominee. Too late for anybody else. Girdusky makes a very good argument for that, but Joe is so tarred, he could very well become Trump’s “insurance policy.” I watched the White House press conference this week, and for the first time in years, I watched reporters pounce on Democrats over this scandal. Could not believe my eyes and ears!
We live in crazy times, Catherine. That’s the only prediction I’m willing to bet on 😉
Highly unlikely that anything approaching Machiavellian cunning exists in this administration. Any smart moves they might make (if any) are stumbled into and a result of dumb luck, emphasis on the dumb. Even their big-brain guys, such as Obama, are laughably overrated. And as a potential patsy, it’s very unlikely that Hunter would be able to carry it through without some spectacular foul-up, some accidental morsel of truth that might unexpectedly and unintentionally drop. The colossal blunder of the laptop, the almost unimaginable idiocy involved that, is just mind-boggling. Compare it to the boxes of classified documents stacked in Biden’s garage. If you’re looking for 3D chess, you’re wasting your time. These dopes can’t even comprehend checkers.
Call it what it is. A corruption scandal. Words matter.
Question for Professor Turkey—if all federal investigations into Hunter Biden are concluded with the court,’s acceptance of his plea bargain, can Congressional Committees subpoena him and compel his testimony without a grant of immunity or risk that he’ll invoke the Fifth Amendment Privilege against Self-Incrimination? Or does DoJ have enough wiggle room to say the investigation of Hunter Biden remains ongoing?
The Constitution prohibits star chamber proceedings where a person might be forced to testify and incriminate himself. Nevertheless, a doctrine of limited use immunity arose by which a judge can order immunity and compel testimony, but that doesn’t apply to Congress.
Regarding your other question, U. S. Attorney David Weiss, a DoJ management employee, already said the investigation remains ongoing.
1) “Investigation is ongoing.”[1]
2) After House DEMs rejected to subpoena Hunter Biden last year, conference chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) promised to do it if House will flip [2]. It is unknown if she was aware that then Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell didn’t allow to subpoena Hunter before ’20 Presidential election because it was “too political”.
3) Every witness in a congressional testimony can invoke the 5th as many did (and will do) and the committe can say it doesn’t apply. If the committee requests documents referencing to specific wire-transfers they have in their possession “Act of Production” [2] is on their side. The witness my not agree, but for all issues, congress has the weapons such as contempt or civil litigation.
4) Don’t expect too much: Chairman Comer’s (R-KY) priority is Devon Archer who he hopes he will appear for questioning.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-de/pr/tax-and-firearm-charges-filed-against-robert-hunter-biden
[2] https://nypost.com/2022/03/26/house-republicans-will-subpoena-hunter-biden/
[3] see crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32184/5
Good question. Hunter’s attorney says the matter is now concluded and his client is no longer under investigation, so how could Hunter invoke the 5th and refuse to testify on these issues?
1) “Investigation is ongoing.”[1]
2) Most of the time it’s a huge difference if you have the government on your side (see Lois Lerner) or against you. However, subpoenaed former WH counsel Don McCahn didn’t have to testify. [2]
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-de/pr/tax-and-firearm-charges-filed-against-robert-hunter-biden
[2] https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/29F7900862BA6CD68525851C00784758/$file/19-5331-1831001.pdf