Adding to the family’s problems during his father President Biden’s re-election campaign, Hunter Biden was found guilty on Tuesday of making a fraudulent claim to be drug-free when applying to purchase a firearm six years ago.
A federal jury debated for almost three hours over two days before finding the younger Biden, who is 54 years old, guilty of 3 charges. The case brought to light a dark chapter in the Biden family’s history of betrayal and substance misuse.
Hunter lied on a federal form in October 2018 when he purchased a.38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver; the jury determined that he was not addicted or using illicit drugs at the time. Throughout the weeklong trial, the jury was made aware of his ongoing battle with alcoholism, as well as proof that he had acquired and consumed drugs in the days leading up to and following his purchase of the handgun from a Wilmington gun shop.
As the verdict was announced, Hunter Biden sat motionless. He bowed to the judge, hugged his wife Melissa Cohen Biden, and then embraced his defense team, including attorney Abbe Lowell, as he left the courtroom.
The younger Biden may spend up to 25 years in prison, though any period served will probably be less than half of that maximum.
Amid November’s election cycle, his father’s political threat increases due to the conviction and the possibility of prison time. In September, Hunter Biden is scheduled to stand trial in Los Angeles on tax charges; this trial could reveal even more humiliating information about his extravagant spending and lifestyle. The trial in Delaware revealed unpleasant revelations about the president’s family. Republicans have seized the opportunity presented by his more extensive legal issues to paint the Biden family as dishonest, even though they haven’t been able to prove the president’s innocence.
In a statement, President Biden said he was “so proud of the man” Hunter Biden is now, but he added that he wouldn’t pardon his son.
After a deal in which Hunter was supposed to plead guilty to two petty tax counts and avoid prosecution linked to the gun purchase collapsed, he was prosecuted on the gun charges last year. Prosecutors and defense attorneys couldn’t agree on how much immunity Biden would receive from any future charges, which led to the startling collapse of the plea deal.
The investigation was subsequently extended even further when Attorney General Merrick Garland granted David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in charge of it for years, special counsel status.
A few weeks before President Biden and former President Donald Trump’s first debate, the trial took place.
In May, a Manhattan grand jury convicted Trump of 34 felonies for manipulating documents to conceal hush money given to a porn star. This makes Trump the first former president in American history to be found guilty of a crime.
How did the family of Hunter Biden reacted?
The first lady Jill Biden, James Biden, the president’s brother, and Hunter’s wife were among the many family members who attended the trial from the front rows of the courtroom. Numerous individuals additionally gave testimony.
These included Hallie Biden, Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law, who dated him after her husband Beau Biden passed away in 2015 due to brain cancer. It was on October 23, 2018, 11 days after Hunter Biden had bought the pistol, that she remembered finding it in his pickup truck. She then drove to a grocery shop and threw the rifle in a trash receptacle.
In the days following Hunter Biden’s firearm purchase, she exchanged texts with the prosecutor. Hunter said in the chats that he was “sleeping on a car smoking crack” and “waiting for a dealer named Mookie.”
Calling her daughter Naomi to the testimony, Hunter Biden’s defense team said that the woman remembered her father as being upbeat when she last saw him in October 2018. While being questioned on cross-examination, she said there was a lot about her father that she was unaware of. He had stopped communicating with her while she was trying to set up a meeting, only to text her in the middle of the night.
When the prosecution questioned Naomi about her own drug use, she replied that she hadn’t. Hunter Biden’s attorney Lowell referred to the question as “extraordinarily cruel” during his closing arguments.
When the prosecutors played parts from Hunter’s memoir, “Beautiful Things,” on audiobook, he described smoking crack “every 15 minutes” for periods of 2018. Hunter’s voice echoed around the courtroom. Like most defendants, he declined to provide a statement and ran the danger of coming under cross-examination.
In his closing remarks, prosecutor Leo Wise described the account as “searingly painful, but personal and honest.”
“He was out of control,” Wise remarked. “He knew he was drug addicted; he didn’t use drugs by accident.”
According to Lowell, his client thought he was in recovery and not actively taking drugs at the time he bought the pistol.
“Hunter has not asked for forgiveness for the mistakes he has made: abusing alcohol and drugs to numb his pain,” Lowell stated.
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Source
The Irish News
