Something has changed inside the Department of Justice, though it’s unclear exactly what might be going on under the covers. After years of stalling and obfuscation, doing everything possible to keep First Son Hunter Biden out of any legal trouble, the DOJ filed nine new charges against Hunter last night. None of them are trivial and three are quite serious. He was hit with three felony tax evasion charges and six related misdemeanors. The unpaid taxes add up to $1.4 million and they carry the potential of up to 17 years in prison. This is going to put Joe Biden in a very awkward position in short order and it comes at a time when many people in his inner circle are questioning whether he can carry the torch to another term in office next year. Is this all a coincidence, or is there something else taking place in the background? (Reuters)

The Department of Justice on Thursday filed new criminal charges against U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, accusing him of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while spending millions of dollars on a lavish lifestyle.

Hunter Biden, 53, was hit with three felony and six misdemeanor tax offenses, according to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

He faces up to 17 years in prison if convicted. The Justice Department said its investigation into Biden is ongoing.

The tax years in question cover 2016 through 2019, a period of time when the younger Biden was infamously addicted to drugs and roaming the country with hookers, and getting into other trouble, including at least one illegal firearms charge. Perhaps crucially, the year 2016 was when Joe Biden was still the Vice President, and Hunter and his friends were allegedly peddling his influence for big dollars from various overseas actors.

Unlike the gun charge, these tax issues are precisely what the Biden clan has been studiously trying to avoid. It’s impossible to address the issue of how Hunter failed to pay taxes on all of that money without addressing the question of where all the money came from. And that once again opens the door to a trail that leads directly back to The Big Guy. No matter how much the legacy media tries to avoid it, this case will shine a very bright light on Biden Inc.

So what are Joe Biden’s options at this point? His own DOJ is bringing the charges. If he issues a preemptive pardon to his own son, he will be more guilty than anything the left has accused Donald Trump of. But if he lets the legal wolves have their way with Hunter, his son may start singing like a bird in an effort to cut a deal.

This can’t be happening in a vacuum. We have to wonder if there are people in the Democratic inner circle who are looking for a way to ease Joe Biden out of the presidential race in a timely fashion. Throwing some heat at Hunter Biden in a way that could potentially expose his father to allegations of corruption just as the primary season is kicking off might be a way to do that. Of course, the other possibility is that the House investigations into the Biden clan have simply become too overwhelming to ignore and some people inside the DOJ have thrown in the towel and given up on covering for The Big Guy. We’ll probably find out soon enough.

Just as a side note for the holiday season, as if Hunter didn’t already have enough to worry about, Republican Congressman Mike Collins of Georgia has been putting up Christmas decorations around his office. He’s included a whole section featuring Hunter Biden, including a life-size cutout of the First Son with the caption, “Let it Snow.” (A reference to his cocaine problems.) He also included a Christmas stocking for Hunter’s long unacknowledged child Navy, Joe Biden’s missing seventh grandchild. The photos in the linked article are hilarious.