The White House stood by President Joe Biden‘s decision to invite Hunter Biden to a Thursday state dinner days after the president’s son reached a plea deal with the Justice Department for federal tax and gun charges.

“I’m just not going to get into discussions, personal family discussions,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday. “That’s his son. He’s a family member, and it’s not uncommon.”

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Hunter Biden, his second wife Melissa Cohen, the president’s brother James Biden, and other family members were on the guest list for the gala honoring Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi days after U.S. Attorney David Weiss advised a Delaware federal court that Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay $100,000 in federal income tax in 2017 and 2018, as well as take part in a pretrial diversion program to avoid a felony charge of having a firearm in 2018 despite being addicted to cocaine, a controlled substance.

Hours before the dinner, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) convened a press conference to announce that, in addition to an IRS whistleblower alleging there were “political considerations” in the federal agency’s investigation into Hunter Biden, there are allegedly multiple whistleblowers “describ[ing] how the Biden Justice Department intervened and overstepped in a campaign to protect the son of Joe Biden.”

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Jean-Pierre directed questions to the White House Counsel’s Office, but Hunter Biden’s personal attorney, Chris Clark, has dismissed the claims as “preposterous and deeply irresponsible.”

“Any verifiable words or actions of my client, in the midst of a horrible addiction, are solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family,” he said. “A close examination of the document released publicly yesterday by a very biased individual raises serious questions over whether it is what he claims it to be. It is dangerously misleading to make any conclusions or inferences based on this document.”

Original Location: White House defends inviting Hunter Biden to state dinner for India’s Modi

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