Lanny Davis, former counselor to President Bill Clinton, told Newsmax Wednesday that he doesn't think Hunter Biden got a sweetheart deal on the two tax charges to which he pleaded guilty. He also said the decision not to charge Biden with a felony on the gun possession count was a "judgment call."
"I actually think he was treated specially — forced to plead guilty to a crime — because I cited statistics from H&R Block," Davis said during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "A fraction — 1/10,000 of 1% — of tax evasion cases are prosecuted."
After host Greta Van Susteren said Biden was not charged with tax evasion, but with willful failure to pay federal income tax, Davis said, "It's a lesser offense to be late paying taxes, but felonies of tax evasion are prosecuted less than 1% of the time."
"Why?" he asked. "Because the IRS collects its money through civil actions. So if he's an ordinary citizen, this would have been a civil action."
Van Susteren said that, in her experience as a defense attorney, Biden was treated in a manner that she would expect for tax violations.
"That's an opinion and I respect that," Davis said. "The data shows that Willie Nelson and lots of other high-profile people who owed tens of millions of dollars in taxes were civilly enforced, not criminally. So I would just refer you to the data about how many times the IRS goes to justice and gets a criminal prosecution in the case of late filing.
"It's simply my point of view that if he weren't Joe Biden's son, he would have been civilly, not criminally prosecuted."
On the charge of possessing a firearm while being an addicted and unlawful user of a controlled substance, Davis said that the decision to allow Hunter Biden to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement was a "judgment call."
"I am told by prosecutors that when this type of felony involves a drug rehab violation of probation — so carrying a gun when you're in rehabilitation for drug enforcement — that a prosecutor will make a judgment: Is it worth prosecuting, or is it worth being sure he's not on drugs anymore? So it's a judgment call by a prosecutor," he said.
When Van Susteren countered that it was "highly unusual" for pretrial diversion to be offered for the gun charge, Davis said she was "second guessing another prosecutor."
"Your judgment may be right, but it is a judgment call," he said. "It's not a political decision. And you can second guess the judgment call, but it was a judgment call."
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