‘No one is above the law’

“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin said Hunter Biden’s plea agreement proved that “no one is above the law” on Tuesday while discussing the news with ABC’s chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl. 

“It shows no one is above the law, which is important, not even the president’s son,” Hostin said, asking Karl why we were only seeing charges “five years later” and why they might be “limited to these cases.”

“The prosecutor here, David Weiss, was appointed under the Trump Administration, so his investigation which, again, started under Trump has been going on for five years. We don’t know the full extent of the investigation. We do know that he did have access to that laptop. We can judge based on the witnesses that went before the grand jury that he looked into questions related to his dealings in Ukraine, but it’s a great question, I was concerned,” Karl said. 

Karl said that he found it “remarkable” that the vice president’s son was getting $50,000 payments from Ukraine’s largest energy company.

“He kept getting that money all the way until 2019. And he had no apparent skills or experience on the questions of energy. And at that point, while Biden was vice president, he wasn’t just vice president, he was the point person for the Obama Administration on Ukraine. So it seemed to me, which is why I asked the question in a White House briefing, there’s at the very least an appearance of a conflict of interest. Why did they hire him?” Karl continued. 

Biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement regarding a separate charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

Co-host Sara Haines asked Karl if Donald Trump’s criticism of the plea agreement was fair. Trump described it as a “traffic ticket.”

“On one hand – it depends on what perspective you’re looking at this. Joe Biden becomes president. He did nothing to stop this investigation. This investigation went forward. He insisted, he said as recently as last month, ‘my son did nothing wrong.’ Well, now his own Justice Department has entered into a plea agreement where his son has pled guilty to two crimes. And has been charged with a third crime, a felony. So clearly his son did something wrong, and that shows that, you know, this went forward and he did nothing to stop it,” Karl said. 

“What Republicans will say is that it didn’t look at the bigger issues. And, look, again, we don’t know because when a prosecutor looks at a case, he makes a decision about what to charge. He doesn’t tell us about what he didn’t charge and why he didn’t. But this is going to be continued to be investigated, these issues of conflict of interest and playing off his name and the Biden family name will be investigated by Congress, by Republicans in Congress. And the issue is not going away,” he continued. 

Karl told the co-hosts that there are major concerns about Biden’s business dealings. 

“The contract that he had with the Ukrainian energy company, also his business dealings in China. One of the details that we reported earlier they were looking into that’s just so strange, he was given, Hunter Biden was given, a 2.8-carat diamond from a Chinese business associate. What’s it all about? We don’t know,” he said. 

“The President and first lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.