By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Half of Americans believe U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, received preferential treatment from prosecutors who reached a deal that would allow the younger Biden to plead guilty to tax charges but to avoid a gun-related conviction, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The two-day poll that ended Wednesday showed Americans were split along partisan lines in their views on the case, with 75% of Republicans receiving preferential treatment compared to just 33% of Democrats.
Most respondents said the case would not affect their likelihood of voting for the elder Biden next year when he seeks re-election.
U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a federal prosecutor appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump, said Tuesday that Hunter Biden, 53, agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges for willfully failing to pay income taxes. and strike a deal that could avoid a conviction on a gun-related charge.
Trump and his Republican allies claimed the plea deal amounted to special treatment for Biden’s son. Weiss was one of the few Trump-appointed prosecutors Biden asked to stay on after taking office in January 2021, to avoid the appearance of tampering with politically sensitive investigations.
The young Biden worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, consultant to foreign companies, investment banker and artist, and publicly detailed his struggles with drug addiction.
He will first appear in federal court in Delaware on July 26, a court filing said Wednesday.
According to court filings, Hunter Biden received more than $1.5 million in taxable income in 2017 and 2018, but paid no income tax in those years despite having more debt. at $100,000.
He is also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm from approximately October 12 to October 23, 2018, while using and addicted to a controlled substance. For that charge, he entered into a pretrial diversion agreement, an alternative to prosecution that is sometimes used to allow defendants to avoid jail time or a criminal conviction.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 1,004 American adults nationwide and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis)