Hunter Biden on Trial: The Gun Charges Outside the Target
Hunter Biden on Trial: The Gun Charges Outside the Target
Washington focused on Pres. Biden's crooked overseas deals while his son got nabbed for using crack cocaine and illegal firearms
Now that Donald Trump’s predictable guilty verdict for paying off a porn star is over in New York City, the courtroom drama shifts southbound.
Hunter Biden’s federal trial for gun-related charges begins on Monday. Pres. Joe Biden’s son will have to sit in court every day and face a jury of his (more similar) peers in Delaware.
Before we delve in, let’s take a poll:
(My votes, prediction and reasoning are below for paid subscribers.)
HUNTER BIDEN
While Hunter has been accused of much bigger crimes— overseas business deals to benefit his father, tax evasion— the smoking gun got him into this trial.
As jury selection begins, it has to scare young Biden that he could face up to 25 years in prison. Unlike Trump’s trial, Hunter’s is supposed to last only two weeks.
Hunter has made multiple court attempts to postpone the trial and get the charges dropped. You’ll remember I wrote about his appeal that the federal law against drug addicts possessing firearms was a violation of his Second Amendment rights.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika denied the filing but said he could use it on appeal. The Donald Trump nominated judge is presiding over the trial.
Hunter says he’s sober now but was a cocaine addict. Drug users cannot possess guns under federal law.
Young Biden is charged with lying on the federal background check form, possessing an illegal gun and lying to a federally licensed gun dealer.
Love Affair Gone Bad
In 2018, Hunter admitted to police and the FBI that his then-girlfriend, Hallie (his deceased brother’s widow), threw his gun in a grocery store trash can. After speaking with Hunter, Hallie returned to retrieve the gun but couldn’t find it and called the police.
Hunter cooperated and said he bought the Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver two weeks earlier. The local investigation finally recovered the gun but no charges were filed.
A few years later, Hunter wrote in his memoir that at the time he bought the gun, he was smoking crack cocaine “every 15 minutes, seven days a week.”
In 2021, Politico’s Tara Palmeri got a hold of the police report and the federal background check that Hunter signed. On the 4473 form, Biden checked “no” on the box that asked:
Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?
Lying on the background form is a federal crime that is not prosecuted as much as it should be by ATF and the Justice Department. But it’s these black-and-white facts that make Hunter’s case tough to defend.
How We Got Here
Political analysts and the media largely ignored Hunter’s gun case because it paled in comparison to the allegations of corrupt overseas dealings involving his father. However, we followed the gun charges closely.
In June 2023, the DoJ announced it made a sweetheart deal with Hunter (my story on it here.) The deal said the feds would wrap up its entire five-year investigation and let him plea to just misdemeanor tax charges.
It also said he was charged with just one count of unlawful possession of a firearm by a person prohibited and but that his record would be wiped clean after a couple of years of probation.
All the attention at the time was on the “10% for the big guy” accusations that were buried. But the powerful gun lobby NSSF Chief Counsel Larry Keane told me of Hunter’s deal:
I think a poor African American or white defendant charged with the same thing would not get this kind of a deal.
Smoking Gun Stands
Just one month later, Judge Noreika shocked everyone by saying the plea deal could not go through. (My story here.) She said mixing immunity on a gun charge with a guilty plea on tax charges was not constitutional.
The judge also asked how Hunter’s immunity on the gun charge would apply to possible future charges in the ongoing investigation
Over the next few weeks, the prosecution and defense fought over whether the sweetheart deal was still on the table (story here.) Hunter’s team said the deal was valid and that Special Counsel David Weiss was trying to “renege” on a binding agreement.
The DoJ stuck to its gun (pun intended, story here) and indicted Hunter on the three gun charges. Biden’s team tried to postpone the trial, saying he wasn’t ready, didn’t have the money and the aforementioned Second Amendment defense.
The Verdict:
I think the jury will…