WILMINGTON, DE—Hunter Biden was found guilty on Tuesday of falsely claiming to be drug-free when attempting to purchase a pistol six years ago adding to his family’s emotional agony as his father, President Biden, prepares for re-election.
A federal jury convicted the younger Biden, 54, of three felony counts after deliberating for around three hours over two days in a case that revealed the pain Hunter’s addiction created in the Biden family. He is the first kid of a serving president to be convicted on criminal charges.
The jury determined that when Hunter purchased a.38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018, he lied on a federal form by checking a box claiming he wasn’t addicted or using narcotics at the time.
During a week of trial hearings, jurors learned about his years-long struggle to stay sober, including evidence that he bought and used narcotics in the weeks before and after purchasing the pistol from a gun shop in his hometown of Wilmington.
Hunter Biden remained stone-faced as the verdict was read
As he left the courthouse, he grinned and greeted his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, and other members of his defense team, before hugging his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden.
“I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week from Melissa, my family, my friends, and my community than I am disappointed by the outcome,” Hunter Biden stated.
Lowell had maintained that when his client bought the pistol, he thought he was in recovery and wasn’t addicted to or using narcotics.
The younger Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, though any prison term will likely be a fraction of that maximum punishment. Judge Maryellen Noreika stated that sentencing dates are normally set four months after a conviction.
The president’s son’s conviction comes two weeks after his anticipated November opponent, Republican ex-president Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies by a New York jury for fabricating records to conceal hush money paid to a porn model on the eve of his 2016 election victory. Trump becomes the first former president in American history to be convicted of a felony.
Republican politicians have attempted to link Hunter Biden’s business transactions particularly with foreign corporations, to the president and paint the Biden family as crooked.
They have found no evidence that Joe Biden was involved in or benefited from his son’s dealings, but they have shed light on how Hunter Biden used his family’s name and the prospect of access to power, including placing his father on speaker phone while meeting with business associates.
Hunter Biden is scheduled to stand trial on tax charges in Los Angeles in September, which might reveal even highly embarrassing details about his luxury spending and lifestyle.
Hunter Biden is scheduled to stand trial on tax charges in Los Angeles in September, which might reveal even highly embarrassing details about his luxury spending and lifestyle.
President Biden has declared he will not pardon his son, but has otherwise supported him, stating that he is “so proud of the man” Hunter Biden has become.
The White House did not answer to a question about whether the president would consider commutation, a type of clemency that reduces his sentence.
The president stated that he “accepts the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.
Any such appeal would most likely include arguments that the firearms charges violate the Second Amendment.
Hunter Biden, who found an odd partner in gun-rights groups, presented that argument in an attempt to dismiss the charges before trial. Noreika, a Trump appointee, turned it down last month
.An appeal on Second Amendment grounds could benefit from a recent Supreme Court ruling that strengthened gun-ownership rights and drew sharp condemnation from his father.
On Tuesday afternoon President Biden spoke at a gun-safety gathering on his recent work to strengthen and implement gun-control legislation.
Hunter Biden was charged on gun charges last year after an arrangement to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and avoid prosecution for the gun purchase fell through.
The plea agreement fell apart spectacularly when prosecutors and defense counsel couldn’t agree on the scope of Biden’s immunity from potential future charges.
Attorney General Merrick Garland then appointed David Weiss, the US attorney who had been managing the investigation for years, as special counsel, extending the investigation even further.
“This case was not solely about addiction. “This case was about the illegal choices the defendant made while suffering from addiction,” Weiss stated on Tuesday. The trial took place just weeks before President Biden’s first debate with former President Donald Trump.
Hunter Biden’s family members watched his trial from the front seats. Hunter returned to court shortly after 11 a.m. on Tuesday, where he took his seat and winked at a pal.
His uncle James, aunt Valerie Biden, and friend Kevin Morris all watched as the verdict was read. First Lady Jill Biden who had sat through much of the trial, attempted to enter the courtroom for the decision but did not arrive on time.
We all knew he was a drug addict” one jury member told CNN In his mind how could he not know he was an addict?”
Several family testified during the trial, including Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law, Hallie Biden, who had a sexual involvement with him after her husband, Beau Biden, died from brain illness in 2015.
She described finding Hunter Biden’s rifle in his pickup truck on October 23, 2018, 11 days after he bought it, and then drove to a grocery store and dropping it in a trash receptacle.
Prosecutors questioned her about text conversations she sent to Hunter Biden in the days after he purchased the pistol.
In the texts, Hunter stated that he was “waiting for a dealer named Mookie” and was “sleeping on a car smoking crack.”
Hunter Biden’s defense counsel put his daughter Naomi to the evidence, where she stated that her father appeared to be in high spirits when she last saw him in October 2018.
Under cross-examination, she admitted she didn’t know much about her father, who slipped out of contact when she tried to schedule a meeting with him, only to reemerge and email her in the middle of the night.
When asked by the prosecution if she had ever used drugs herself, Naomi said no. Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Lowell, referred to the question as “extraordinarily cruel” during his closing statement.
Hunter’s own voice boomed around the courtroom when prosecutors played excerpts from the audiobook edition of his memoir, “Beautiful Things,” in which he described consuming crack “every 15 minutes” for stretches in 2018. He elected not to testify, risking being cross-examined, despite being a Yale Law School graduate.
During closing arguments, prosecutor Leo Wise described the account as “searingly painful, but personal and honest.”
“He had lost control,” Wise explained. “He didn’t use drugs by accident, and he knew he was addicted to drugs.”
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Source
wsj.com
