Beautiful things, extravagant lifestyle

By Debra J. Saunders

Syndicated columnist

“Hunter Biden lashes out at GOP,” read USA Today’s front-page headline Thursday.

The real news was in the subhead: “Flouting subpoena, he may face contempt vote.”

Yes, on Wednesday, the president’s son refused to testify under House subpoena -- he said he didn’t want to testify behind closed doors, but that’s not his call -- as he nonetheless felt free to give a tongue lashing to House Republicans.

During the press conference, Biden took no questions from the press.

Hunter Biden admitted that he had addiction issues, which he disclosed in painful detail in his memoir, “Beautiful Things.” Then he suggested he was a victim of the “MAGA Republicans.”

There’s a pattern here.

Talking heads often frame the House GOP’s look into Hunter Biden’s curious income by maintaining Republicans have failed to link the son’s huge paydays to President Joe Biden’s record.

They’re blind to the fact that, legal or not, when the son of a then-vice president and later presidential hopeful rakes in some $7 million from 2016 through October 2020, much of it from foreign interests, it makes Team Biden appear as if it is for sale.

That’s not just a GOP talking point. During the 2016 campaign, The New York Times reported that Hunter Biden “lacked any experience in Ukraine and just months earlier had been discharged from the Navy Reserve for testing positive for cocaine” in 2014 -- yet somehow found himself on the payroll of Ukraine energy company Burisma, while his father was supposed to be fighting corruption. In Ukraine.

While Hunter Biden wants to focus on the House investigation, I can’t forget Special Counsel David Weiss’ Dec. 7 indictment of Hunter Biden on nine federal tax fraud charges.

The president’s son pleaded not guilty.

According to the indictment, the 53-year-old Georgetown and Yale Law School graduate failed to pay his taxes as he splurged on an “extravagant lifestyle.” To wit: “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.”

The document claims Hunter Biden spent $10,000 on membership in a sex club, identified $1,500 for an exotic dancer as a business expense, and told a personal assistant to pay his boat loan payment, not his taxes.

Weiss noted that in the year 2020, after Hunter Biden “had regained his sobriety” and was paid more than $1.2 million, the younger Biden still did not pay off his tax liabilities.

If I recall correctly, his father ran for president in 2020.

Apparently the son thought he could short the U.S. treasury, and get away with it.

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