Hunter Biden lawyer ‘wanted to put President on stand’

Chris Clark is said to have made the suggestion while seeking to head off charges against the President’s son.

Joe Biden gives son Hunter a ride earlier this year. Picture: AFP

Hunter Biden’s lawyer stated his intention to call President Joe Biden as a witness for the defence in any criminal trial during negotiations with the US Department of Justice, according to correspondence leaked to the Politico website.

Chris Clark is said to have made the suggestion while seeking to head off charges against the President’s son.

A plea deal was hammered out that spared Hunter prosecution for possession of a gun while being a drug abuser, requiring him to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanours and granting him a measure of immunity from further prosecution – but it fell apart when it was brought before a judge in May.

David Weiss, a federal prosecutor appointed by Donald Trump who was overseeing the investigation and was kept in his post after Mr Biden took office, has since been appointed as a special counsel.

That has given him increased authority to pursue the investigation, raising the likelihood of a trial as Mr Biden campaigns for re-election.

Hundreds of pages of correspondence between Hunter’s lawyers and DOJ officials have offered a view of how the agreement fell apart. They show Hunter’s lawyer seeking to suggest that charging his client at all would be seen as a sign that the DOJ was bowing to political pressure, according to Politico.

Mr Clark wrote late last year that charging Hunter for buying a gun while regularly using crack cocaine, and lying on paperwork about his drug use, was “constitutionally dubious at best”, according to the site.

He also claimed that leaks to the press at the time about a potential gun charge, and the President responding to the claims in an interview, had “inserted President Biden into this case”, adding that he “now unquestionably would be a fact witness for the defence in any criminal trial”.

The correspondence also suggests prosecutors may have become more determined to charge Hunter after two investigators from the Internal Revenue Service came forward as whistleblowers, accusing DOJ officials of hampering the investigation.

In a further embarrassment to the President last week, Republicans alleged that Mr Biden had used pseudonyms in private emails with his son and Ukrainian business associates to conceal potential corrupt activity from 2013 while vice-president to Barack Obama.

The Times