In regard to the alleged criminal behavior of Hunter Biden, elected Democrats have been virtually unanimous in defending the president's son of the accusations against him and have been insistent that no wrongdoing whatsoever occurred.
At least one congressional Democrat, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), bucked that narrative last week and acknowledged that it was "clear" to him that Biden had violated federal laws and deserved to be held accountable via prosecution, according to the Conservative Brief.
Of course, Himes was incapable of making that admission without also taking partisan shots at Republicans who have defended former President Donald Trump against allegations of criminal wrongdoing.
During a Friday appearance on MSNBC, according to Fox News, Rep. Himes said, "Let me say something that you never heard a Republican member of Congress say in the four years of the Trump administration, which is that if Hunter Biden broke the law, he should be prosecuted."
"And it is clear that he broke the law with respect to taxes and possibly the ownership of a handgun. He should be held accountable for that," he continued.
"If he traded on his father’s influence, he should be held accountable for that," the Connecticut Democrat added. "And I’m emphasizing this because you never, ever heard a Republican say the same thing about Donald Trump or his family."
Yet, while Rep. Himes appeared willing to accept the fact that Hunter Biden had allegedly violated various federal laws, the Democratic lawmaker was unwilling to follow those allegations to the next step in implicating Hunter's father, President Joe Biden, of any sort of criminal behavior rising to the level of impeachable offenses.
"Now, to the question about impeachment, there is today zero evidence -- zero evidence -- that Joe Biden, the president of the United States, knew about what his son was doing," Himes said. "If, if he did know about it, if he participated in that, then that is a very different conversation."
What Rep. Himes referenced in terms of Hunter Biden's alleged criminal wrongdoing were a pair of misemeanor tax violations, for failing to pay income tax for two years, and a felony gun charge, for illegally possessing a firearm while abusing or addicted to illicit drugs, for which a plea deal had been agreed upon that give him only probation and avoid any time behind bars.
Unfortunately for Biden, while he intended to plead guilty to the tax violations and accept probation along with a separate but related diversion agreement on the gun charge -- which would be wiped from his record if he avoided further trouble for two years -- he ended up pleading not guilty after the agreement was scuttled during a Thursday court hearing in Delaware, according to the Associated Press.
The plea deal was scrapped, at least for the time being, after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika raised a number of probing questions about various unusual aspects of the plea deal and diversion agreement, including her own purported unconstitutional role in the proceedings and a hidden provision that appeared to extend broad immunity to Biden against future prosecution on other potential criminal charges unrelated to taxes or guns.
In the end, Judge Noreika refused to act as a mere "rubberstamp" on the deal and instead ordered both prosecutors and defense attorneys to rework the agreements and explain to her at a later date why she should sign off on them in approval.
As for Rep. Himes reference to a President Biden impeachment, that was likely in reference to remarks earlier in the week from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), according to Axios, which suggested that congressional investigations of the Biden family's business dealings had uncovered information that he viewed as "rising to level of impeachment inquiry."
To be sure, McCarthy caveated his own suggestion about a formal impeachment inquiry by acknowledging that there remained insufficient evidence to support an actual impeachment, at least at the moment, but indicated his belief that the various committee probes would eventually find such evidence if there were any to be found.
