WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, will plead guilty to federal tax offenses while avoiding prosecution on a different firearms allegation as part of a plea agreement with the Justice Department that will likely save him time in jail.

Hunter Biden, 53, will plead guilty to minor tax offenses as part of a deal announced on Tuesday. If he follows the terms of the agreement, he will avoid prosecution on a felony charge of illegally possessing a pistol as a drug user. While resolving a federal criminal matter while charges are pending in court is unusual, it is not unheard of.

The agreement brings to a close a lengthy Justice Department investigation into Biden’s second son, who has admitted to struggling with addiction since the death of his brother Beau Biden in 2015. It also avoids a trial, which would have created days or weeks of distracting headlines for a White House that has tried hard to distance itself from the Justice Department.

While it requires the younger Biden to confess, the arrangement is limited to tax and gun offenses rather than anything more significant or related to the Democratic president. Yet, former President Donald Trump and other Republicans tried to use the case to cast a negative light on Joe Biden and raise questions about the independence of the Biden Justice Department.

Trump, who will run against President Biden in the 2024 election, compared the agreement to a “minor traffic ticket,” adding, “Our system is BROKEN!”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy compared the verdict to the Trump Papers case, which is now being heard in federal court, saying, “If you are the president’s son, you get a good deal.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis,

another presidential candidate, used the same statement.

The president and first lady Jill Biden “love their son and support him as he continues to fix his life,” according to the White House counsel’s office.

According to two people familiar with the investigation, the Justice Department will recommend probation for Hunter Biden’s tax violations, which means he will not face prison time. Yet, the judge has the last decision on whether or not to accept any settlement. The individuals were not authorized to talk publicly by name and spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

He will plead guilty to failing to pay more than $100,000 in taxes on over $1.5 million in income in both 2017 and 2018, charges that carry a year in prison as a maximum penalty. According to a person familiar with the investigation, back taxes have already been paid.

Hunter Biden allegedly kept a handgun, a Colt Cobra.38 Special, for 11 days in October 2018, despite knowing he was a drug user, according to the firearms charge. The offense carries a maximum sentence of up to ten years in prison, but the Justice Department stated that Hunter Biden had reached a pretrial agreement. This likely means that the case will be removed from his record if he meets the contract terms.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Christopher Clark, stated that the five-year investigation was now concluded.

“I know Hunter believes it is critical to accept responsibility for the mistakes he made in his life at a period of stress and addiction,” Clark continued. “He is excited to continue his recuperation and move forward.”

The agreement comes as the Justice Department investigates what may be the most significant case in the department’s history against Trump, the first former president to face federal criminal charges. Hunter Biden‘s case came just days after former President Trump was indicted on 37 charges for allegedly mishandling classified data at his Florida club, a case with far-reaching political ramifications.

The indictment triggered a firestorm of Republican criticism of the Justice Department’s “politicization.” Meanwhile, congressional Republicans continue investigating virtually every area of Hunter Biden’s business operations, including international payments.

Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said the younger Biden is “getting away with a slap on the wrist” despite congressional investigations that GOP lawmakers claim show – but have yet to provide evidence of – a pattern of corruption involving the family’s financial ties.

Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, on the other hand, claimed that the matter was thoroughly investigated over five years by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Delaware prosecutor judge appointed by Trump.

The case’s settlement, according to Coons, “brings to a close a five-year investigation, despite the enormous conspiracy theories developed by many who expected there would be much more to this.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was scheduled to campaign with the president on Tuesday evening, announced his support for Biden’s reelection.

“Hunter makes no difference,” Newsom said on Tuesday to The Associated Press.

The Trump claims stem from appointment of a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to conduct an independent investigation into any potential conflicts of interest inside the Justice Department.

The Justice Department investigation against the president’s son became public in December 2020, one month after the 2020 election, when Hunter Biden said that he had received a subpoena as part of the department’s tax audit. The subpoena sought information on the younger Biden’s financial relationships with several companies, including Burisma, a Ukraine gas company on whose board he served.

At the time, Hunter Biden indicated that he was “certain that a competent and objective investigation of these instances will prove that I operated my business lawfully and appropriately, including with the use of skilled tax counsel.”

A federal grand jury in Delaware has heard testimony on his taxes and offshore business operations since then.

The department solicited the resignations of most Trump-era U.S. attorneys in February 2021, as is customary in a new presidential administration, but emphasized that it was keeping Weiss in place to ensure continuity in the probe.

During a congressional hearing last August, FBI Director Christopher Wray noted that the investigation was still ongoing out of the bureau’s Baltimore field office and stated, “I expect our folks to pursue aggressively.”

Garland vowed not to interfere with the probe at a future hearing in March. Yet, in a letter to Congress seeking whistleblower protection, an unknown IRS special agent was accused of mishandling the investigation.

In 2014, the younger Biden joined the Burisma board. At the time, his father, then-Vice President Obama, assisted in the administration’s foreign relations with Ukraine. Without evidence, Trump and his followers have long maintained that Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine influenced the Obama administration’s policy toward the country

 in Eastern Europe.

Hunter Biden was a crucial figure in the first impeachment case made against Trump, who had encouraged Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a phone call to initiate an investigation into the younger Biden in an apparent move to promote his reelection bid.

Republicans later tried to make Hunter Biden’s business contacts in Ukraine a focal point of the 2020 presidential election.

The New York Post reported in October of that year that it had obtained a copy of a hard drive from a laptop that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved from Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The story was viewed with skepticism due to questions regarding the laptop’s origins, notably Giuliani’s role, and because key Trump administration officials had warned that Russia was attempting to damage Joe Biden before the November election. There is no evidence of a Russian link to the laptop or the emails on the advice.

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