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“Hunter Biden's daughter testified in her father's defense on Friday that he seemed to respond well to drug treatment in the weeks before he bought a gun that prosecutors say he obtained illegally by failing to disclose his addiction. Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's son, has pleaded not guilty in federal court to felony charges that include lying about his addiction when he applied for the Colt Cobra revolver in 2018 and illegally possessing the weapon for 11 days…
“The jury in the 5-day-old first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. president's child heard witnesses including Hunter Biden's ex-wife, former girlfriend and sister-in-law testify about his use of crack cocaine. His sister-in-law, Hallie Biden, on Thursday recounted finding the gun and throwing it away out of concern for the safety of Hunter Biden and her children…
“Prosecutors said that there was overwhelming evidence Hunter Biden was actively using crack in the weeks before and after he bought the gun and that he lied by answering ‘no’ on a government screening document when asked if he was a drug user. Defense attorney Abbe Lowell has said Biden did not intend to deceive because he did not consider himself an addict when he purchased the gun.” Reuters
“The case, brought by U.S. Special Counsel David Weiss, a Trump appointee, is one of Hunter Biden's two criminal cases. He also faces federal tax charges in California… A plea agreement that would have resolved the gun and tax charges without prison time collapsed last year after [Judge Maryellen] Noreika questioned the extent of the immunity it extended to Hunter Biden. His lawyers blamed Republican pressure for the failure of the plea agreement.” Reuters
Here’s our previous coverage of Hunter Biden. The Flip Side
The left is generally critical of the decision to indict Hunter, arguing that similar offenses are rarely prosecuted.
“Republicans, Fox News and the rest of MAGA Media Inc. are reveling in the Hunter Biden trial, without, of course, acknowledging that it contradicts their cockamamie ‘two-tier system of justice’ blather…
“[They] would have us believe that the president engineered a ‘sham’ case to make Trump a convicted felon, and yet Biden has been unable to prevent ‘his’ Justice Department from putting his own son on trial…
“The Justice Department this week also is trying a Democratic senator, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, on corruption charges… And last month, the DOJ indicted yet another Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, also on bribery charges.”
Jackie Calmes, Los Angeles Times
“In this time where violent crime is every office’s priority and nonviolent addicts are treated differently than they once were, I cannot conceive of an office spending any resources – let alone five-plus years, countless agents and numerous prosecutors – on a case with similar facts…
“The purpose of prosecutorial discretion is to make the law work for its intended purpose. Addicts and nonaddicts alike make mistakes every day; no office has the ability or desire to prosecute each infraction. And certainly no office should chase felony convictions and jail time in a misguided effort to appease either side in Congress.”
Charles M. Oberly, USA Today
“It does seem pretty clear that Weiss’s thinking changed as the whistleblowers went public and criticism from Republicans intensified… Another interpretation, though, is that Hunter also pushed for too much. Rather than settling for a deal that would close the tax and gun case against him, Hunter’s team demanded broader immunity for other potential crimes as well…
“So, is the case against Hunter defensible, or has it been politicized? Yes and yes… Politics has clearly affected the prosecution’s decisions. But that doesn’t mean their decisions are indefensible, and Hunter’s choices mattered here too.”
Andrew Prokop, Vox
Regarding Joe Biden’s alleged involvement in Hunter Biden’s business affairs, “House Republican’s fishing expeditions have come up empty, leaving them with nothing that could substantiate impeachment charges against the president…
“The primary figure they relied on to build the narrative that Hunter and Joe Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine was charged with lying to the FBI and revealed to have connections to Russian intelligence. And nothing that Hunter Biden told them in a much-vaunted deposition provided them with any ammunition against his father.”
Hayes Brown, MSNBC
The right supports the prosecution, but cautions against ignoring other potential offenses committed by Hunter and his family.
The right supports the prosecution, but cautions against ignoring other potential offenses committed by Hunter and his family.
“[Hunter’s] defenses are about as convincing as saying that your client got locked into the bank vault after losing his way to the restroom… hours after the bank closed. So why present unbelievable defenses in Wilmington? Because it is Wilmington. This is Biden’s hometown… As if the jury needed any reminder, First Lady Jill Biden sitting behind Hunter brings home that this is a Biden trial in Bidentown…
“Wilmington for Biden is the opposite of Manhattan for Trump. This is a town that overwhelmingly voted for Biden in 2016 and 2020. It is a great jury pool for the defense… The combination of sympathy for a reformed addict and identification with the Bidens could be enough for a jury nullification strategy. The defense is not asking the jury to consider the evidence. It is asking the jury to ignore it.”
Jonathan Turley, New York Post
“As the trial unfolds, don’t lose sight of the real issues: the Biden clan’s shameless influence-peddling, which very much implicates Joe Biden… In 2015, his laptop emails show, Hunter set up a meeting between his father, at that time the vice president and the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine, and executives from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm that was paying Hunter $83,000 a month…
“The emails uncovered by the Post [in October 2020] also show that Hunter entered a shadowy business deal with a Chinese Communist Party–linked firm, in which 10 percent of the profits were to be set aside for someone referred to as ‘the big guy.’ One of Hunter’s partners, a Democratic-leaning former intelligence officer, insists that ‘the [big] guy’ is none other than Hunter’s father.”
Sohrab Ahmari, American Conservative
“He’s not on trial for sex trafficking, influence peddling, money laundering, or even operating as an unregistered foreign agent — even though there’s evidence of his participation in all of these crimes. No, he’s on trial for lying on paperwork, and even then, it’s a trial the Justice Department never wanted to happen. The government only charged him after a judge called foul on an attempted sweetheart deal…
“Corporate media are desperate to convince Americans who just witnessed the ultimate weaponization of the justice system with the show trial conviction of former President Donald Trump that the system is working just fine, since Hunter is also facing charges. The left wants you to believe that charging Hunter with what is possibly the least damning allegation stacked against him is somehow morally and legally equivalent to inventing a novel crime to weaponize the justice system against a political opponent.”
Brianna Lyman, The Federalist
A libertarian's take
“However you assess Biden's suitability as a gun owner back then, he has been sober for years. Yet if he is convicted of the gun charges against him, which involve illegal possession and misrepresenting himself as a legal buyer, he will not only face up to 25 years in prison; he will also permanently lose his Second Amendment rights… [This is] on the heels of a New York conviction that stripped Donald Trump of his Second Amendment rights…
“At least [four] federal courts have deemed prosecuting marijuana users for gun possession unconstitutional. Courts also have questioned the provision that bars people with a wide range of criminal records from owning guns… [The Biden and Trump cases] highlight the arbitrariness of a federal law that deprives Americans of their gun rights for reasons that have nothing to do with public safety.”
Jacob Sullum, Reason
