When you don't like the facts, attack the messenger.MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2023 8:49 amcome on, Tolman has been a partisan activist for a long time, right wing backing all along. He's a frequent partisan hack on Fox, that paragon of truth telling, and he's a lobbyist now in DC for right wing causes and, frankly, anyone who will grease him...and oh yeah, this:old salt wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2023 1:32 amPopadop had to plead guilty to a felony process crime (because he couldn't afford to defend himself) & spent 14 days in a Fed pen because he mixed up the dates on when he met with Misfud when he was ambushed & entrapped by the FBI at the airport. No gun. No chance of violent crime, while Hunter's gun ended up in a dumpster near a school.
Hunter should have a felony record & spend at least 15 days in the pen. ...then he wouldn't have to worry about a future big bad Trump DoJ.
https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/20/hu ... diversion/
Biden’s DOJ is letting Hunter walk away with the kind of slap on the wrist most defendants can only dream about from inside a prison cell.
by Brett Tolman, June 20, 2023
What a breathtaking and damaging act of misdirection. After five years of investigation into a host of criminal acts by Hunter Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) finally brought charges against the president’s wayward son. But while the DOJ hopes the public focuses on words like “charges” and “guilty” to form an image of accountability for all, it’s letting Hunter walk away with the kind of slap on the wrist most defendants can only dream about from inside a prison cell.
In the same breath in which DOJ announced it was filing charges against Hunter Biden, it also stated that the case had already been resolved. Hunter will plead guilty to and serve probation for two tax fraud misdemeanors while a felony firearm possession charge will disappear after he completes pretrial diversion. It’s a resolution that if the defendant’s last name weren’t Biden would sound almost too good to be true.
The feds are notoriously tough on firearms. Nationally, for example, 94.2 percent of federal firearms convictions in 2022 involved some prison time, and the median sentence was 39 months.
Of course, Hunter won’t even have to end up with a conviction. This is an even rarer event. In 2021, fewer than 1 percent of cases filed by U.S. attorneys in federal court resulted in the kind of pretrial diversion offered to Hunter.
...diversion programs across the country have improved public safety at lower cost to taxpayers than prison alternatives.
But that’s clearly not how things are shaking out in practice at DOJ, and President Biden has expressed an ongoing willingness to harshly punish firearms offenses. His DOJ is defending this law in court, and he signed a law in 2021 to increase maximum penalties from 10 years to 15 years in prison. Apparently, President Biden does not believe offenders should be treated with kid gloves — at least when it’s not his kid.
Indeed, if Hunter’s were a typical case, we could have expected a much more aggressive DOJ response. Mixing illegal drugs and firearms is usually a quick trip to the land of five- or seven-year mandatory minimum sentences. Whole initiatives, such as Project Safe Neighborhoods, have been built around getting offenders combining drugs and weapons off the streets.
That Hunter will walk away with few consequences where thousands have instead been left to languish in federal prisons in terrible conditions paints a picture of a two-tiered justice system where an accident of birth can matter more than the facts of a case. We can debate which tier is better for our country or how we ought to respond to these kinds of transgressions. But the legitimacy of the criminal justice system demands that there be only one track that applies fairly to all.
So, no, this is not a day of accountability. It is one of power and privilege securing special benefits while hoping the rest of us are too distracted by the headlines to notice. We shouldn’t let this pass without calling it out for what it is and then working to improve it.
Brett Tolman is a former U.S. Attorney and Executive Director of Right On Crime.
On January 17, 2021, the New York Times published an article reporting that Tolman has "collect[ed] tens of thousands of dollars, and possibly more, in recent weeks to lobby the White House for clemency for the son of a former Arkansas senator; the founder of the notorious online drug marketplace Silk Road; and a Manhattan socialite who pleaded guilty in a fraud scheme".[20]
And he's bothered that Hunter would get off on a plea deal? Made by a Trump appointed prosecutor?
Nah, pleas are typical with no jail time if there's restitution and admission of guilt. And this crime, which you love to label "process", was merely not admitting on a gun purchase form that he was currently addicted to drugs...this isn't the sort of thing that Holman is referring to with 94% of "gun crimes"...Tolmon knows he's misrepresenting, of course, so pure partisan hackery.
It's when there's not restitution and not admission of guilt, but rather baldly lying to the Feds, ala Papadop, that you go to jail.
But sure, we can agree that having resources to pay for good legal counsel matters in America.
Tolman's a hell of a lot more qualified than you are to offer an opinion on this.
How many diversions on over 4000 gun charges have been offered by the Biden DoJ. Zero.
The gun crime wasn't just an admin crime. His gun was dumped & could have easily been recovered & used in a crime.
It's lot more serious than what Papadop did.
Restitution ? That's a joke -- unsecured "loans" & "art" sale scams to political supporters.
The Trump appointed US Atty prosecutor is a joke. The AUSA who did the damage is a Dem partisan. Not only did she & Weiss try to slip an unconstitutional plea deal by a savvy Judge, they delayed the tax charges until the SOL ran on 2014 & 2015 taxes & he's allowing the 5 year FARA SOL to expire. The whole DE sham investigation stinks. That's like hiding behind a senile Muller, because he was a (R) when he still was aware of what he was doing, while letting a (D) partisan like Weissmann lead a team of partisan (D) prosecutors & investigators.