Jury selection begins this week in Delaware in a federal gun case against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, after the collapse of a deal with prosecutors that would have avoided the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election.
Hunter Biden has been accused of lying on federal gun purchase forms when he said he was not a drug addict. He pleaded not guilty and argued that his father’s Justice Department is unfairly targeting him.
Republicans had criticized the now-defunct deal as special treatment for the Democratic president’s son. Hunter Biden also faces a separate trial in California in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes.
Jury selection in a federal gun case against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter will begin Monday after the collapse of a deal with prosecutors that would have avoided the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election.
Hunter Biden, who spent the weekend with his father, has been charged in Delaware with three felonies stemming from a firearms purchase in 2018 when, according to his memoir, he was in the midst of a crack addiction. He has been charged with lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false statement on the application used to screen firearms applicants when he said he did not use drugs, and illegally possessing the gun for 11 years. days.
He has pleaded not guilty and argued that the Justice Department is unfairly targeting him after Republicans denounced the now-defunct deal as special treatment for the Democratic president’s son.
The trial comes just days after Donald Trump, the Republicans’ presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, was convicted of 34 felonies in New York City. A jury found the former president guilty of a scheme to cover up a money payment to a porn actor to prevent damage to his 2016 presidential campaign. The two criminal cases are not related, but their proximity underscores how the criminal court has taken center stage during the 2024 campaign.
Hunter Biden also faces a separate trial in California in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes. Both cases were to have been resolved through a deal with prosecutors last July, the culmination of a years-long investigation into his business dealings.
But Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned some unusual aspects of the agreement, which included a proposed misdemeanor plea to resolve the tax crimes and a diversion agreement on the weapons charge, which meant that as long as he stayed out of trouble during two years, the case would be dismissed. The lawyers fought over the agreement, could not reach a resolution, and the agreement fell apart. Attorney General Merrick Garland then appointed the lead investigator as a special prosecutor in August, and Hunter Biden was indicted a month later.
This trial has nothing to do with Hunter Biden’s foreign business affairs, which Republicans have seized upon without evidence to try to paint the Biden family as corrupt. But it will dig into some of Hunter Biden’s darkest moments and expose them.
The president’s allies are concerned about the toll the trial could take on the elder Biden, who has long been concerned about the well-being and sobriety of his only living son and who must now see how those painful mistakes of the past are analyzed publicly. He’s also protective: Hunter Biden was with his father all weekend before the case began, riding bikes with his father and attending church together.
President Biden, in a last-minute change of plans, moved from his Rehoboth Beach home to his Wilmington compound Sunday night. Boarding a helicopter on Sunday was the only time the president was seen publicly without his son all weekend.
Allies are also concerned that the trial could become a distraction as the president tries to campaign with anemic poll numbers and as he prepares for an upcoming presidential debate as proceedings unfold.
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