The long-awaited revelation that federal prosecutors had reached a plea deal with first son Hunter Biden on tax and gun crime charges marks the likely end of a five-year Justice Department investigation that has dogged the presidential family.
The deal will likely keep President Biden’s 53-year-old son out of jail and spare him a trial — essentially a slap on the wrist following the long-running probe focusing on money he received from overseas business interests.
Here’s the full timeline of the DOJ probe and first son’s recent legal turmoil:
2018: Federal investigators begin looking into whether Hunter Biden, or his associates, violated any tax and money-laundering laws during their business dealings in Ukraine and China.
October 2018: A separate investigation is initiated after Hunter’s sister-in-law-turned-lower, Hallie Biden, throws away his handgun – leading to a search by Secret Service agents for the weapon and a disclosure of its purchase to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A gun purchase form reveals Hunter – an admitted crack cocaine addict at the time – had answered “no” when asked: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
April 2019: Hunter Biden drops off three damaged laptop computers at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. He asks shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac to recover data from their hard drives, but never returns to reclaim them.
December 2019: Mac Isaac alerts the FBI after examining the hard drive and finding evidence of suspicious monetary transactions, as well as a large number of pornographic images.
October 14, 2020: The Post publishes the first in a series of bombshell reports on how Hunter Biden traded on his name to help his business associates gain access to his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.
December 9, 2020: The investigation bursts into public view as Hunter reveals – one month after his father won the 2020 presidential election – that he had received a subpoena as part of the Justice Department’s scrutiny of his “tax affairs.”
The subpoena from Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ office called for information on Hunter’s business dealings with a number of entities, including Burisma Holdings – the Ukraine natural gas company whose board he joined in 2014.
Hunter insists he is “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors [sic].”
February 2021: Weiss, appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, is retained by President Biden so he can complete the long-running probe into the first son’s finances.
November 2022: After the GOP clinches the House majority, incoming Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer vows to carry out their own wide-ranging probe into nearly every facet of Hunter’s business dealings and foreign payments.
April 26, 2023: Hunter’s attorney meets with federal prosecutors at Justice Department headquarters in Washington
June 20, 2023: Weiss reveals in a court filing that Hunter has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of failing to pay federal income tax and enroll in a pretrial diversion agreement on the felony charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user. A judge still has to sign off on the deal.