Hunter Biden has been found guilty on all three of the felony charges he faced, but the case, according to Mike Howell, smells of “corruption.”

“What’s happening with Hunter [Biden] is essentially they picked the lowest level thing that didn’t connect to [President] Joe [Biden], the thing they could paint in the light of addiction, the most sympathetic light, as a means to absolve him for guilt in everything else,” says Howell, executive director for the Oversight Project at The Heritage Foundation.

“What the American people really care about, what I care about, is not that Hunter [Biden] was a crackhead,” Howell, also an investigative columnist for The Daily Signal, said, but “the corruption in the federal government, that Joe Biden and his family were running an international pay-to-play influence-peddling scheme in some of the most corrupt regions of the world, to include Ukraine and the [Chinese Communist Party].”

Howell joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to argue why the guilty verdict in the Hunter Biden case is more complex than it may appear.

Read the lightly edited transcript below:

Virginia Allen: Mike, on Tuesday, the jury in Hunter Biden’s federal criminal case found Hunter guilty on all three of the charges that he faced. What was your initial reaction when you learned this guilty verdict?

Mike Howell: Yeah, not surprised whatsoever. Was born at night, wasn’t born last night. And the fix has been in for some time here. I mean, I really worry that the propaganda media is going to play this as a both sides thing. They’re going to basically say, at the high level, “Oh my gosh, Hunter was held accountable. And that’s what’s happening to [former President Donald Trump.” When they are categorically different things of degree and kind and implications.

What’s happening with Hunter is, essentially, they picked the lowest-level thing that didn’t connect to [President Joe Biden], the thing they could paint in the light of addiction, the most sympathetic light, as a means to absolve him for guilt and everything else.

What the American people really care about, what I care about, is not that Hunter was a crackhead, not that he was a crackhead that got his dead brother’s wife addicted to crack cocaine. She’s the one who found the gun and got rid of it. All that’s immaterial.

What’s material is the corruption in the federal government, that Joe Biden and his family were running an international pay-to-play influence-peddling scheme in some of the most corrupt regions of the world, to include Ukraine and the [Chinese Communist Party], our enemies in the CCP and other corrupt regions.

And what happened in this arc, starting from a year ago when we were in federal court, … the same federal court, by the way, that he just got convicted in, David Weiss, the prosecutor, same prosecutor here, tried to give Hunter a plea deal: Accept liability for the gun and tax stuff and we’ll pardon you for all this other stuff that connects back to Joe and the corruption that the American people are upset with. We sniffed that out, got it blown up.

And so here they’re back at the drawing board today, convicting him of the gun charge, but still no movements on the things that American people care about. And what this sets up for, not only the misinformation that the law is being applied evenly in this country, but for a pardon of hunter.

They pick this sympathetic thing, … you can wrap in addiction and all those things, and you cannot connect to Joe. And it sets up Joe for a pardon of Hunter, a pardon that will not only be for this charge, but for all the things connecting not only back to Joe and his family, but to, the thing I’m even more concerned about than the Bidens, is the intelligence community and law enforcement who sat there and watched this corruption happening in plain sight. Not only did nothing but hid it and then used every tool at the disposal of the awesome force of the U.S. government and even some other governments to go after President Trump, which you’re still doing today.

And so, this is not a both sides thing, this is corruption.

Allen: Let’s unpack this because there’s a lot that you just went through there. You said, “We sniff this out, we blew it up.” You’re talking about the Oversight Project’s work last year. Take us back to last July when the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s Lawyers said, “Hey, we have a plea deal in this case,” the Oversight Project was involved—like you said—in exposing, “OK, wait a second, this isn’t quite what it looks like.” For those that weren’t following this story, catch us up on that.

Howell: So, a year ago in court in Delaware, same court, Judge [Maryellen] Noreika, same judge. It was a hearing about the plea deal that Hunter was offered. And so, obviously, the antennas go up, it’s, “What’s going on here?” And basically, what they were doing was giving him a plea deal on the lower-level offenses. And in this very unusual, convoluted plea deal, they were going to absolve him and say, “We will not prosecute you for anything else you did in this time period.”

And so, we’re sitting there—and we have several ongoing lawsuits related to it, related to things he probably should be prosecuted for in that time period—thinking, “What the heck is going on?” The fix is in, they’re trying to slip one past the court and just absolve Hunter. And not only Hunter but Joe, and then by extension, also his family and federal law enforcement, all the other corrupt actors in this.

So, we quickly got our squad together and pulled a bunch of all-nighters and delivered a massive, I think it was 750-page brief to the court outlining all these concerns, all the other things that were on the table. And ultimately, she agreed with our brief and threw the plea deal out.

Then they had to go back to the drawing board. The same David Weiss said, “OK, we couldn’t get the plea deal, the corrupt plea deal that we offered him” And so, the same guy who offered him the corrupt plea deal, by the way, is the one prosecuting him here, which should raise some alarm bells. He’s back at it.

And so, they ultimately decided—and this is my read—like, “Alright, we got to prosecute him for something. There’s just too much out there with all the IRS whistleblowers. Let’s just give it a go and give the perception we’re going hard against him on the lowest-level thing.” And then that is going to present a circumstance in which Joe will probably pardon Hunter, maybe after the election, maybe before the election. Don’t know. Don’t know. But in that pardon, it’ll be for all the activity, not just the gun form, set that aside, it’ll be for running an international influence-peddling scheme out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Allen: Joe Biden has said that he won’t pardon his son, but you’re saying, “Well, I think he might.”

Howell: Yeah, I think he absolutely will. Look, Joe Biden is probably the most dramatic liar in American political history. And that’s a crowded environment. I mean, of course he takes no cost for promising not to do it and he’ll take the cost when he actually does it, which is why if there’s an opportunity to, they’ll do it after the election. I don’t know what sentencing looks like. And they’ll frame it in the light of, like, “This is just MAGA Republicans going after a poor addict.” … You can imagine right now the pitch that the media will run with and others on Capitol Hill and whatnot. This just sets up for that. And, so yeah, Biden’s a liar. He’ll lie again.

Allen: Where does Hunter Biden’s laptop play in all of this and what are we going to hear? Are we going to hear more about that laptop in the coming days, weeks, months?

Howell: I mean, look, this is one of the biggest scandals in American political history. It was on the back of that lie that Biden corruptly ended up in the White House when he and 51 intelligence officials and the mainstream media and social media basically censored the laptop that came out prior to the election. That was a lie that had a lot of foreign entanglements in it, too.

We talk a lot about foreign influence in elections. A lot of these people, those 51, have significant foreign ties in their careers now and what they’re doing. A lot of them retain security clearances.

And so, the fact that there is yet another admission from the government that the laptop was real—and there have been several admissions along the way—just shows the damage such lies of great magnitude can have on American, not only the politics, but the consequences of those politics.

And those consequences of those politics are what people are really focused on right now. That’s runaway inflation, that is a wide-open border. It’s the chaotic government, the sense of just turning to a very dark chapter in this country, one in which lawfare and political opponents are put in prison.

Allen: Speak a little bit more, if you would, to your concerns that you mentioned about the foreign policy, the community authorities at play, law enforcement, corruption there. What needs to be exposed here, in your opinion?

Howell: Right. The biggest thing, the thing that historians and people watching the long arc of American history should be most concerned about with regard to the Bidens is that federal law enforcement and the intelligence community people we vested with awesome powers, particularly since 9/11, have taken on a firmly partisan stance.

Not only did they interfere in the last election and many more before that—and they’ll interfere in this one—but the fact that when presented with the biggest flashing red neon lights about corruption at the highest levels, and I’m talking about the influence-peddling schemes in Ukraine and the CCP, particularly that the intelligence community and law enforcement picked a partisan side.

They opted to let this intelligence elite capture, from China, particularly, continue and to capture the president of the United States if that meant that Donald Trump was not the president. So, these people we vest through our Constitution with the ability to arrest us, to shoot us if they must, are inherently partisan.

And I guess I’ll put it simply this way: You can believe one of two things. You can believe probably the silliest, most senile president in American history and his drug-addict crackhead son managed to stay one step ahead of the awesome powers of the American intelligence community, military, and law enforcement, or they let it go. And I think the answer’s pretty obvious there.

Allen: What’s going to happen with the sentencing? We know Hunter Biden could face up to 25 years in prison. That’s unlikely because he’s a first-time offender. What do you predict we’re going to hear from the judge in the sentencing?

Howell: Don’t know. Judge Noreika has been very fair in our dealings with her. I don’t know what she ultimately will decide. I don’t know to what extent the things external to this case will play in. You say he is a first-time offender, but anybody can be a first-time offender if the entire federal law enforcement apparatus lets you run an international influence-peddling scheme and all these other associated crimes. So, I don’t know to what extent it’ll play in. There might be a reason for us to go to Delaware.

Allen: Does this place the president in an awkward position since he has been so clear on the need for further gun restrictions in the United States and yet his son was just convicted on charges of purchasing a gun while actively using cocaine?

Howell: Yeah, absolutely it does. I mean, the fact pattern of this the media hasn’t really touched because it’s so sorted. I take no pleasure in saying this, but this was a crazy period in the Biden family, and they’ve had a lot of crazy periods. This is Hunter getting his dead brother’s widow, who he’s sleeping with, addicted to crack cocaine. She found the gun, she dumped the gun in a dumpster outside of a public grocery store, … grocery store across the street from a school. It doesn’t get much worse and crazy than that.

And this is a president that is going after law-abiding Second Amendment supporters, not only who own guns but vocalized support of it. And those people are being debanked. It’s clearly at odds.

But look, the Left is—we on the Right make so many appeals to their logical inconsistency. They know they’re logically insistent. It’s about inconsistent. It’s about power. And so, sure, we can sit there and say, “Hey, what about this? What about that?” But the problem isn’t proving to the American people that they’re hypocrites. It’s their weaponization of power that we need to take away.

Allen: How do you do that?

Howell: Well, there’s a lot of ways, we’ve been pretty vocal about it. Ultimately, you need to take power from them. So, it comes down to the American people. But there are other things that could be done to defend against the worst abuses of the weaponization. Those are the things I’m most upset about because in the current structure, we aren’t utilizing any of the tools on the table.

So, of course, I’m always going to be mad at the crazy libs, but I’m more mad at the people who do nothing to stop them. The people who actually, rhetorically, will go on cable news and say they’re on our side, but when it comes to their access to power, the power we give to them by voting to give them that responsibility, they don’t use it. And I’m talking primarily about the United States Congress here. Since the House flipped from Democrats to Republicans, the weaponization has gotten worse, way worse.

I mean, ask President Trump, he’s looking at prison right now, along with a lot of other Americans. It’s stepped up. Congress has continued to fund this radical weaponization. They’ve continued to give it a veneer of legitimacy with token opposition through their pen-pal operation paper cut: We’ll send [Attorney General] Merrick Garland a letter that has their list of his naughtiness on it, and then we let the matter die there.

So, it gives the American people the sense that there is kind of this conflict in a check when there’s really no check. And so, it’s damaging our republic. And that’s why a lot of people are calling for legislative special counsel now, which basically would be Congress admitting what they’re doing isn’t working and then taking all their powers, investing it in someone else with the funds that they haven’t even touched to do this, to go out and do the job.

I think at this late-stage republic moment we’re in, it would be awful to leave those options unexplored and basically end this Congress by returning money to the Biden administration that’s supposed to be used to hold them accountable.

Allen: Along those lines, at the Oversight Project, I mean, this is what you guys do day in and day out. You’re looking at these issues. You’re trying to bring things to light that are in darkness within the federal government, within state governments. Give us a little bit of a preview on what you guys are working on this summer, if you would.

Howell: Right, absolutely. So, our MO is getting the facts and the docs out there, propelling litigation based on those things, getting the information directly to the American people and bypassing legacy gatekeepers. And we do it at a volume and speed which I don’t think anyone can keep up with.

We’re at almost a hundred lawsuits now. We’ve had some of the biggest discoveries, if you will, over the past couple of years. The machine is humming. But I’ll tell you where the machine is squarely pointed now, it’s on the system levels, levels attack on our election integrity and the lawfare.

Without those two things, if they remain unmolested and continuing to grow, they basically guarantee leftist strangled grip on power. And then after that it gets a lot harder. I don’t want to say impossible to ever take power back. I’m talking about drastic changes to the election system and basically turning the legal system into a pro forma draping of legality that’s just used to achieve partisan ends.

And so, look, I am rock ribs on all these other issues, these policy issues, but right now, we never win on a policy issue if we don’t solve those two things. And so, we are really in the election integrity space.

I think illegal aliens present a massive threat to the ability to have a certifiable election. I think that Biden, using the federal government with far-left nonprofits for the biggest government-funded, directionally targeted, get-out-the-vote effort is a huge problem that’s gone unaddressed. They’re basically bragging that they could register 3 million people only on one side. They’re only pointing the machine at their areas, not areas where they think a Republican might show up. And it’s just a federal overreach into the elections, which has dramatic consequences. And everyone listening to this is paying for it right now with their taxpayer dollars.

And then just the last thing is the continuing infrastructure of the illicit ballot-harvesting network and the predatory ballot harvesters. I think they have been allowed to operate with impunity and we’re trying to change that.

Allen: We encourage all of our listeners to follow the work of the Oversight Project on X, @OversightPR. And you can also follow the work of Mike Howell himself at @MHowellTweets on X. Mike, thanks so much for your time. We really appreciate it.

Howell: Hey, good to be with you. Thanks for having me on the pod-sizzle.

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