Much time, maybe around a year, 12 months, could be even less than that depending on whether they consider the gun to have been possessed for Sporting Purposes or collection, and i dont know if he could make a case for that or not, but, you know, were talking about probably somewhere in the 12month neighborhood i would think. Jennifer, please stay with us. We want to reset for our viewers if youre just joining us on cnn news central, an historic decision by the Department Of Justice. They have filed charges against the son of President Joe Biden, hunter biden, three different charges, two of them related to lying on statements in an effort to buy a firearm. The third charge for actually possessing that for imas a prohibited person. A reminder, the case being brought by Special Counsel daniel weiss is based on Hunter Bidens purchase of this weapon as he wrote in his form that he was not using narcotics and later in a biography wrote that he did. We have a team of reporters and analysts with us to break down this news. First to paula reid. Youre getting some new reporting about whats going on. Yeah, ive been speaking to a few people in Hunter Bidens camp. Even when the plea deal fell apart they felt like the judge would approve it and when that didnt theres quite a bit of despair because hes facing millions and millions in legal debt from his various legal issues, and its very difficult for him to find employment right now or raise money, so these charges today, i am told they came as news to their team. They have not scheduled an initial appearance or how exactly hes going to turn himself in, right . Will he be arrested . Typically you arrange a time to turn yourself in. They have also been asking a lot about his relationship with his father and with the white house, and im told by multiple sources that hes still very close to his dad. They talk frequently, but they dont talk about this criminal case a lot. Im told that hunter doesnt want to burden his father with it. They shouldnt be talking about it, right . Right. They should not be talking about this. I want to go to Kayla Tausche at the white house. As youre seeing reaction there, tell us what youre getting. Reporter well, brianna, we are hearing from the White House Counsels Office who as expected when asked to respond to the news of the indictment today said that any questions should be referred to the Department Of Justice or hunters personal representatives given that this is an independent investigation. Thats been the official line from the white house ever since this began. The white house has pointed out that Trump Appointment of david weiss as essentially legitimatizing the investigation back when it was expected to result in a plea deal, and also suggested that the fiveyear nature of the investigation meant that whereof it was going to end up was going to be done in a way that evaluated all of the facts at hand. Certainly it has taken a different turn than the white house, than the president had expected. The president was was said to be relieved when this was headed towards a plea deal, and that when the plea deal fell apart there was quite a bit of uncertainty and frustration that entered the situation, but when i spoke to some people who are close to the white house about, you know, the efforts by republicans to try to tie the president to the actions of his son, they said, you know, at this point the only thing the president is guilty of is loving his son and coping him close and that aides within the white house know that. They know not to cross the president when it comes to issues involving hunter, that he remains extremely close, as paula said to his father. The two men speak regularly. Hunter is still invited to official white house events. Hes invited on the president s plane, on his vacations and its bite these legal troubles the president has not been willing to keep hunter at a distance, so that is the nature of this relationship Behind The Scenes at the white house. There is said to be some frustration that this did not end the way that it was expected to end just a few weeks ago. Jessica dean, to kaylas point theres a political backdrop. The former president is facing four trials, right . There are allegations on the hull that biden, though they presented no public evidence of this, was somehow involved in Hunter BidensBusiness Dealings, so you have republicans claiming theres a twotiered system. Youre trying our president in a way youre not trying. But the fact is this is the first time the Justice Department has ever charged the sop of a sitting president , and it happens to be joe bidens sone. Do you believe that politics intervened from the other direction, that the doj or the Special Counsel or david weiss, the prosecutor, felt political pressure that the deal that they made and were signed on to was too soft and, therefore, they had to go tougher . Look, i think the doj and you all have followed this so closely, the doj, the Attorney General have done everything they can to keep this as nonpartisan as possible. They have tried to do that in a hyperpartisan world that we live in. True. Everything has political implications. This, of course, has political implications for a variety of reasons. Youll remember our polling that just came out. 55 of americans believe that President Biden acted inappropriately around the handling of this investigation into his son. Again, as you mentioned, theres no evidence that the president has done anything wrong, but when you look at that and separate that out into democrats and republicans it tells a story that everyone is going to think exactly the story that we would expect, that democrats much Smaller Group of democrats think that that happened. It is the republicans a much larger swath of Republican Voters believe that President Biden has acted inappropriately here, but the fact remains that in a general election this is going to be an issue, and it is going to come up. I covered President Bidens campaign in 2020 and it was already coming up. The hunter issue came up again and again and went back to what were hearing that this is a president who loves his son and hes struggled, and the question is to voters is is the cake baked with biden in the sense that you already factored in hunter and youve made your decision on on how you feel like everybody has behaved there, or is this is this going to be a new layer . Also, how do you compare the current legal troubles facing the former President Biden if that is the choice in the end . Right. There are allegations that you can make in public unproven, still make the allegations but to prove them in court is a separate issue. And the politics of this is playing out on capitol hill with Kevin Mccarthy and his Impeachment Inquiry. The white house is directing questions to doj, but there is some separation between how the white house has approached this very quietly. Joe biden not talking about it very publicly to the way hunter and his legal team have been approaching it. They have been certainly more aggressive. This has been fascinating to watch because earlier this year, the Hunter Biden Legal Team decided to take on a much more aggressive strategy and did this over objections from the white house. There are senior advisers in the Biden White House who would prefer that hunter stake his licks, stay quiet and dont engage but it got to a point where hunter and one of his lawyers said, no, we dont want to do that anymore. We want to punch back. He brought on abby lowell and hes been working with longtime friend and lawyer. They have been firing off letters to the hill and they filed a white house against a former White House Trump official who they accused of hacking into his iphone and the backup for his laptop. Again, this is a its not clear if its going to be successful, but this is a much more aggressive forwardleaning strategy. It makes waves. It makes headlines, and it makes some people at the white house a little crazy. They would prefer that this not be the approach, but hunter biden and his team said we need to do something, cant just sit here so this has caused tension with some white house advisers, but, again, every source that ive spoken with and our colleagues have spoken with all agreed that the president and his son are extremely close and he has his support, but the people around the president , they are not so sure about this. The president lost his other son. Yeah. You know. I mean, its just one of the many factors you have to throw into that relationship. I want to get back to evan. Evan, bringing you back into this conversation. Lets remind ourselves how long this has taken, right . Five years. Right. No, i think thats actually a huge factor in why you see so much so much drama around this investigation, right . This is an investigation that began this is now the third the third Attorney General that is having to deal with this investigation. It began before bill barr took office under the Trump Administration. He is the up that decided that david weiss, you know, was going to keep this case. There were different aspects of this investigation that were other jurisdictions, and he decided near the end of the administration of the Trump Administration that david weiss, the u. S. Attorney in delaware, was going to keep this investigation, and, of course, when joe biden took office, he let david weiss stay in his in his position in order to to help oversee this. So here we are, again, five years after this investigation began, and this is the first actual Criminal Charge were seeing, and one of the things that one of the reasons why you see so much frustration and why you now have the whistleblowers who have been talking to republicans on capitol hill is the frustration of why this investigation has taken this is not that complicated. You know, this certainly certainly this gun charge, if you wanted to bring it, could you have brought it, you know, a couple of years ago when certainly cnn we reported two years ago that this was part of the consideration of what was being looked at, so we knew that this was being done, and yet here we are just days before they really had the deadline to bring it is when david weiss, the Special Counsel, the now Special Counsel, is bringing it. Thats going to be part of the story that you are going to see play out over the next coming months as republicans begin their inquiry trying to figure out or trying to find evidence that they believe exists, that ties the sitting president to some of the dealings of his son and other members of his family. What youre going to see a lot of, of litigation and certainly a lot of testimony from people inside and Behind The Scenes is the infighting that has opinion going on Behind The Scenes, the sort of disagreements about this case and why it has stretched out to five years. A lot of times the criticism of the Justice Department is that you have a lot of lawyers there who are hesitant to make Big Decisions or major decisions because they dont want to get criticized and then they punt these things down the road, and thats a criticism you hear a lot, and i think youre going hear that a lot more Going Forward because there is really no good answer as to why this has taken five years. And on that question, lets take a step back. David weiss, the u. S. Attorney, has been a figure of intense focus, of intense scrutiny during the entire investigation. He reportedly appeared to be willing, according to the new york times, to end the Hunter Biden Probe with no charges earlier this year and then things changed. Walk us through the entire process to where we are now. Reporter right. I mean, this investigation has been under w for five years and it was wideranging. You know, there is some back and forth what has come out through come of the testimony of agents that were working on this case, that have given tim to House Committees in which they talk about meetings and discussions about how and where to bring these charges and that one of the issues, that you know, they had the irs which investigates tax crimes, they wanted david weiss to bring felony tax evasion charges, and they also recommended some misdemeanor tax charges. You know, that has evolved as there often is. Theres disputes and back and forth between investigators and prosecutors about what they can prove, and then there was also presentations to the main justice and the tax division which generally, you know, sees every tax case because they want a consistency in how the tax laws are applied to citizens, so there was some skepticism, some pushing back as we have reported about the strength of the evidence in this case on on the tax charges and that there were, you know, questions about how this was going to be resolved. I mean, this investigation was very it was under investigation for a long time. It seems as if there was a lot of debate about how to get to the finish line and whether they would bring a case of the ultimately they did believe it a they could bring a case and there were Plea Negotiations that got under way. Part of what weve been discussing is because of the nature of their charges, that hes paid back 2 million in the taxes, is that sufficient before its criminally handled . And then theres the constitutional issues that have risen more recently. These are all parts of the factors that were under discussion and under the table and a deal was struck that everyone agreed to and own when it was under scrutiny before a charge who asked a lot of questions we both the deals, did hunter biden real understand that he would have immunity from in terms of prosecution because the question was essentially, you know, if there is a change in administration and a new Justice Department, how far back could they look at hunter biden, what was he really going to be protected on under this deal . There were questions there. It seemed like it had fallen apart. The Justice Department and hunters team came back together in agreement on what this deal would be and the deal said she wouldnt approve it because she had concerns about the constitutionality of the gun dole as well as the scope of the immunity that he would receive and the structure of the tax deal. I mean, then from there, you know, as weve been talking about, there was no agreement between Hunter Bidens team and the depart of justice about how they would try to renegotiate what was on the table in terms of taxes and guns and david weiss, a trump appointee who has been overseeing this investigation from the start, he then went to Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, asked for Special Counsel status saying that he had reached the stage where that was necessary. One of the questions here has been jurisdiction. Where did you bring this case in the gun was purchased in delaware. That was squarely in the delaware u. S. Attorneys jurisdiction and then the question of taxes, you know, it would either be l. A. Or washington, d. C. Where hunter biden lived and where his taxes were filed and that was a question of how that would be brought. I mean, when it was negotiated, that was an issue that they negotiated away, that didnt matter, but this is the next stage of the investigation of where will the tax charges be brought and the Special Counsel at weiss office do look like they are going to bring but what exactly will they charge . One thing we see from the indictment today, the plea deal essentially on the gun charge is no prosecution is part of the diversion agreement, it was just on the poe serbs and today hunt irbiden is indicted on three counts, two counts related to false statement, one on the form that he filled out saying that he was not addicted or a user of a controlled substance, in this case Crack Cocaine and a false statement that he made to the gun dealer in which he made that same affirmation. The third count being that he possessed while he was an addict and, you know, this charge here is from october of 2018. He held this gun for 11 days, and at the time Hunter Boyden has been open about that he was using drug, you know. He wrote in his memoir about his drug use, so those are the three charges that hes facing ranging from a maximum of five years in prison and one of the counts to a maximum of ten years in prison on two of the counts so certainly serious charges, boris. Paula, a lot of allegations are going to get mixed up in the same pot here, right . A prosecutor has charged on gun charges here, has not made a decision on whether to charge on the tax charges, may very well be heading in that direction. Republicans are alleging that President Joe Biden is involved in bribery and Business Dealings with hunter biden. Theres been no public evidence presented yet. What have prosecutors and investigators found that were aware of that tie hunter biden to the current presiden