US President Joe Biden's alibis for his wayward son's foreign business dealings look increasingly flimsy, a former CIA insider says.
The controversial plea bargain, which would have seen the president's son cop for misdemeanour tax evasion and firearms charges in return for a probationary sentence and a promise to address his drug and alcohol abuse, fell apart on Wednesday after US District Judge Maryellen Noreika asked if Biden was still under investigation for other offenses.
When prosecutor David Weiss and Biden's defense attorney Chris Clark disagreed on whether the deal would absolve him of other crimes yet to come to light, both agreed the deal was "null and void."
The Biden family is also bracing for further damaging revelations on Monday, when Hunter's former business partner is expected to testify before Congress how he witnessed him bringing his father into teleconferences with his overseas clients.
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern told Sputnik that the president has already had to change his story.
"The bigger thing here is that not only do they have the goods on Son Hunter," McGovern said. "Rumor has the president himself saying, 'what shall I say, untruths?' His main position on all this stuff for years is, quote, 'I never discussed with my son anything having to do with his business, period'."
But Archer, looking for his own clemency deal after his conviction for fraud in June, has undermined that claim.
"I guess what the White House is saying now, instead of 'I never discuss with my son anything having to do with his business', the White House is saying 'the president has always said that he has never been in business with his son'. See the difference there?"
The Biden family's business ties to Ukraine — where Hunter was given a lucrative directorship at gas firm Burisma Holdings while his father pressured the Kiev government to sack its prosecutor general when he probed corruption at the firm — have been thrown bak into the spootlight.
"The coup de grace is that there was a Ukrainian functionary close to Zelensky, and if I understand correctly, still close to Zelensky, who is witness to some of these conversations," McGovern noted. "You don't have to be an intelligence analyst to say, my God, that's blackmail material."
That raises serious questions about why the US continues to pour arms and money into the lost cause of Kiev's conflict with Russia.
"Zelensky himself can wag the dog, so to speak," McGovern stressed. "Zelensky himself can say: 'Well, Joe, you know, this could get out and could you give me some F-35s or something like that?'"
He predicted that Hunter Biden would not be "let off with a slap on the wrist and promise not to use alcohol, drugs anymore."
"He's going to be held to account," McGovern said. "And once again, you have the new judiciary coming through here with a sensible resolution to this, whereas the Justice Department under Biden has really kicked the ball down the road."
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