Hunter Biden investigation reaches 'critical' stage
Former Utah prosecutor Brett Tolman offers analysis on 'The Story' as first son's federal probe presses on in Wilmington.
The federal investigation into Hunter Biden has reached a critical stage, where the current grand jury has been disbanded with no charges yet brought, despite allegations the 52-year-old lied on a firearm purchase form among other claims, an ex-prosecutor told Fox News on Thursday.
Biden, the younger son of President Biden, has been subject to a federal investigation in Delaware for several years – and the White House elected to keep U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss in office past the end of the Trump administration purportedly to avoid claims of conflict-of-interest.
With the grand jury reportedly disbanding, the case may now be in the hands of government prosecutors to make the next move, which former U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman told "The Story" leaves a very strange dynamic:
"None of this adds up. None of it makes sense. Indictments should have been brought when you first started calling witnesses and close thereto, that's standard," he said.
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Joe Biden, D-Del., left, stands with his son Hunter. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
"The fact that a grand jury is now terminating here fairly soon or has terminated, in essence, you have to start all over. If the new grand jury gets empaneled, you have to re-present all the evidence that you may have presented."
Tolman said that normally charges or the threat thereof would be brought before the termination of the first grand jury.
Prosecutors could've hung the younger Biden's well documented crack cocaine use and claims he lied on a federal gun purchase form over his head, he said, adding attorneys and officials involved in the Delaware case aren't proceeding as he would have.
"[I]t's not adding up. It's certainly not what I would have done. And it's not what the majority of my colleagues who served as U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys would have done in this case," he said.
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Delaware, ‘The First State’ (Fox)
Hunter had reportedly responded in the negative to a form question about being an "unlawful user of or addicted to" various controlled substances, when purchasing a gun his late brother Joseph III's widow Hallie – with whom he was in a relationship – had discarded in a public trash can near a school.
Biden's father, the president, has long been a proponent of prosecuting similar infractions and enacting farther-reaching gun control legislation.
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(Getty Images)
The probe is still investigating potential tax violations, foreign lobbying violations, false statements and gun infractions, a source told Fox News.
"Anybody who wanted to seek justice in this case would have charged Hunter Biden very quickly," Tolman said.
"You would have threatened distribution of narcotics and possession of firearms – which carry lengthy prison sentences," he said, adding prosecutors could have also elected to press him as a "source" if they wanted to investigate allegations Joe Biden was aware of or involved in his son's foreign business dealings – which the White House denies.
"I mean, this is so simple and so basic that the only conclusion I can make is political games are being played and have from the very beginning," Tolman said.
When asked about parallels between Hunter's case and that of Clinton-linked attorney Michael Sussmann, Tolman said Biden has much more "visual evidence" from his laptop and purported text messages that would play differently in court than the evidence presented against Sussmann, who was not convicted of any crime.
"There's just so much that this is the equivalent of a softball being floated and you have an extremely large bat."
Fox News' David Spunt contributed to this report.