President Biden says he is ‘very proud’ of son Hunter
At a conference on artificial intelligence, President Joe Biden says he is "very proud" of his son, who has pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion.
Lawyer for hip-hop artist Kodak Black, who was charged with the same federal weapons crime as Hunter Biden and sentenced to over three years in prison, slammed the prison-free plea deal reached by the Justice Department and the president's son.
"There's no such thing as not getting jail time on a gun charge on any kind of gun charge," Bradford Cohen, criminal defense attorney for Black, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
The Justice Department announced Tuesday that Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax. The younger Biden also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement with regard to a separate charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.
Cohen commented in a Tuesday Instagram post reacting to the news: "2 tiers of justice? Kodak was charged for the same crime. Got over 3 years. Mr. Biden will not serve a day. Feels right? Do FBI agents and federal authorities take cases personally?"
Kodak Black arrives at the MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum, Aug. 27, 2017, in Inglewood, California. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP/File)
BIDEN ADDRESSES SON HUNTER'S FEDERAL TAX EVASION PLEA DEAL FOR FIRST TIME PUBLICLY: 'VERY PROUD'
In 2019, then 22-year-old Black, who had prior convictions, was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to weapons charges. He admitted that he falsified information on federal forms to buy four firearms from a Miami-area gun shop on two separate occasions.
Black was pardoned and had his 46-month sentence commuted in 2021 by then-President Donald Trump.
President Biden has snapped at reporters who have asked him about alleged corruption that involves him and son Hunter Biden. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
In speaking with Fox Digital on Tuesday, Cohen said the DOJ's plea deal with the younger Biden is out of step with a prosecutor’s typical treatment of federal crimes, especially when they involve public figures.
"I’ve never seen anyone where this offense was charged," Cohen said, "and they didn't get some sort of prison sentence. And in fact, most of the time in federal court, you very rarely see people get anything but a prison sentence."
Cohen noted the case involving actress Felicity Huffman, who was charged and sentenced to two weeks in prison as part of a college-admissions scandal in which she paid to boost her daughter's admission into college.
"So, in this Felicity, Huffman case, to give the woman two weeks in prison, you know that you actually have to surrender yourself going for two weeks, change her clothes out to all this stuff, for literally 14 days. And this guy gets absolutely nothing? I've just never seen it happen."
"A federal crime is supposed to be a federal crime," Cohen went on. "And federal crimes are supposed to be very serious federal crimes, and that's why you look at prison sentences."
Cohen also bashed the inclusion of the "diversion program," which is a form of pretrial sentencing aimed a remedying the behavior that led to the offense – something that he said was extremely rare in federal cases.
Hunter Biden, son of President Biden, in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2022. (BACKGRID USA)
"I think that this is like, you know, they figured the easiest way for them to save face [was] to charge him, not give him prison, and then hope that [Joe] Biden doesn't give him a pardon until he's on his way out two years," the lawyer said.
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"So, they get a couple of couple years of probation out of them."
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