Hunter Biden, Merrick Garland slated to attend state dinner days before first son faces gun trial — with little press there
WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland are slated to attend Thursday night’s state dinner in honor of visiting Kenyan President William Ruto — less than two weeks before the first son is scheduled to stand trial on federal charges for alleged gun crimes.
President Biden’s 54-year-old son and America’s top lawman were expected to join a couple hundred other members of the nation’s business and government elite at the White House party after both Hunter and Garland also attended a small Rose Garden celebration of Jewish heritage on Monday.
Hunter’s wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, walked the red carpet and posed for photos without her husband.
She did not respond when a reporter asked, “Where’s Hunter?”
Two of Hunter’s five children, Finnegan Biden and Naomi Biden, were also spotted at the black-tie event.
The awkward pairing would likely to draw substantial criticism after Hunter Biden and Garland previously drew fire for jointly attending a state dinner last June — just two days after Garland’s Department of Justice signed off on a probation-only plea deal for the president’s son for both illegal gun possession and tax fraud linked to foreign income.
That peal deal was brokered shortly after IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler alleged that Garland had given misleading testimony to Congress — itself a possible crime — about Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ ability to charge the first son in other jurisdictions.
The IRS whistleblowers alleged an array of additional DOJ interference to shield Hunter and insulate the president from pursuit of leads tying him to foreign business dealings dating to his vice presidency.
In a stunning development last July, Hunter walked away from that “sweat heart” plea deal over demands for broader immunity for past conduct, including alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which could implicate his father, who is known to have met with his patrons from Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine, as well as executives from two different Chinese state-linked ventures.
Hunter’s rejection of the deal set in motion pending trials on gun charges in Delaware — scheduled to begin June 3 — and a trial in Los Angeles — which was set to start June 20, but which on Wednesday was postponed until September — for allegedly failing to pay more than $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016-2019.
Garland elevated Weiss to the status of special counsel in August so that he could file the charges outside of Delaware.
Other guests invited to the state dinner include former first lady Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state under President Barack Obama before losing the 2016 presidential election to former President Donald Trump, MSNBC host and activist Al Sharpton, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and billionaire Melinda French Gates.
Actors Sean Penn, LeVar Burton, Michaela Cole and Wilmer Valderrama, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg are also expected to attend, as will first lady Jill Biden’s top aide Anthony Bernal, against whom three former colleagues have alleged sexual harassment, Hillary Clinton’s former aide Huma Abedin and her partner Alex Soros, the son of billionaire Democratic donor George Soros.
