Editor's note: This story by James Reinl, based on the DailyMail.com/TIPP Poll, appeared on the DailyMail website.
- Americans by wide margins view Hunter's sweetheart deal with suspicion
- Even supporters of the president's Democratic Party eye 'special treatment'
- Read about how Hunter's dealings are back in the Judiciary Committee today
US voters by wide margins say prosecutors gave Hunter Biden 'special treatment' over his tax and gun-related charges, including half of Democrats, a DailyMail.com/TIPP Poll shows.
Our survey of more than 1,300 adults this month found that 61 percent said President Joe Biden's son got a sweetheart deal last month when prosecutors let him plead guilty to tax charges but dodge a gun-related conviction.
An overwhelming 83 percent of Republicans said the younger Biden had received special treatment, but importantly, about half of supporters of the president's own Democratic Party felt the same way.
Researchers found that almost every demographic — including men, women, whites, blacks, and Hispanics from all regions of the US — broadly agreed that Hunter's deal was unusually generous.
US Attorney David Weiss, a federal prosecutor appointed by Republican former President Donald Trump, last month said Hunter, 53, had agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes.
He had also entered into an agreement that could avert a conviction on a gun-related charge, Weiss added.
Trump and his Republican allies charged that the plea agreement amounted to special treatment for Biden's son.
Weiss was one of a few Trump-appointed prosecutors that Biden asked to stay on after he took office in January 2021, to avoid the appearance of tampering in politically sensitive investigations.
The younger Biden has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, consultant to foreign companies, investment banker and artist, and has publicly detailed his struggles with drug abuse and prostitutes.
He is set to make an initial appearance in federal court in Delaware, according to court filings.
The papers show that Hunter received taxable income of more than $1.5 million in 2017 and in 2018, but did not pay income tax those years despite owing in excess of $100,000.
He is also charged with unlawfully owning a firearm from roughly October 12-23, 2018, when he was using and hooked on drugs.
For that charge, he entered a pretrial diversion agreement, an alternative to prosecution that is sometimes used to allow defendants to avoid prison time or a criminal conviction.
The deal does not appear to have allayed concerns about the conduct of the president's son among Republicans, who are investigating allegations of foreign influence peddling among Biden family members when Joe Biden was Vice President in the Obama administration.
Testifying on Wednesday in front of the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted he was 'absolutely not' working to protect the Biden family and that the agency had not been politicized.
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