Hunter’s defense is going to be very awkward for the White House.
Hunter’s defense is going to be very awkward for the White House.
I said I’d believe it when I see it. Well, now we’ve all seen it: Hunter Biden has been indicted on three felony gun charges. Some initial observations:
First, the point of bringing three charges is strategic. Biden is charged not only with two counts of lying about his status as a user of, and addicted to, illegal narcotics. Prosecutor David Weiss has also included a count of unlawful possession of the firearm for about eleven days in October 2018. This is a response to a claim made by Biden apologists in the media-Democratic complex, namely, that it is exceedingly rare for people to be prosecuted for making false statements in connection with gun purchases.
That is an overstatement, but even to the extent there’s truth to it (many more of those cases should be prosecuted than are), it relates to a category referred to as “lie and try” cases — where the subject of the investigation lies to try to get a gun but ultimately doesn’t get it because the lie is discovered before the gun can be transferred to the buyer.
By including count three, Weiss underscores that this is not a “lie and try” case; it’s a lie and succeed case. Biden was a person who was not permitted to have a gun under federal law and not only got one but was so careless with the gun that it was lost — when his paramour at the time, Hallie Biden, tried to dispose of it at a store across the street from a school. By charging the unlawful-possession count, prosecutors will be able to prove how the gun was obtained and mishandled if the case eventually goes to trial.
Second, remember that everything of importance that happened in this case happened in Delaware.
According to whistleblower agents, Weiss told them a story about how he really wanted to file charges against Hunter but was being blocked by Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in Los Angeles and Washington — the districts that were the proper venues for filing tax charges. As I’ve pointed out, that was a tall tale. In the Justice Department, when there is a dispute between two U.S. attorneys, which often happens, Main Justice gets involved, and the attorney general decides. If AG Merrick Garland had been willing to green-light charges against his boss’s son, he would have ordered any recalcitrant U.S. attorneys to cooperate with Weiss and file charges.
But putting that aside, there are no Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys to blame for Weiss’s failure for five years to file the indictment that was finally returned on Thursday — as the statute of limitations was on the precipice of expiring. It was Weiss and Weiss alone who delayed bringing one of the most straightforward felony gun cases you’ll ever see. Weiss wasn’t being blocked. He was stalling.
Third, the Biden Justice Department tried to disappear the entire case against Hunter Biden just a couple of months ago. Seven weeks ago, the Biden Justice Department told a judge that there should be no prosecution at all of the gun case, and no prison time in connection with any charge, against Hunter Biden. So it’s rich for the same Justice Department to put out a statement in connection with today’s indictment stressing that Hunter is facing up to 25 years’ imprisonment. If Biden is convicted on any or all of the three felonies, his defense lawyers are going to have one of the strongest arguments anyone has ever heard that there should be no prison time — they will just need to recount what the prosecutors said and did.
Fourth, Hunter’s main lawyer, Abbe Lowell, is already indicating that the defense will challenge the constitutionality of the federal gun laws to the extent they forbid substance abusers to keep and bear arms. Just last month, in United States v. Daniels, the Fifth Circuit federal appeals court threw out the conviction of a man who was a recreational marijuana user in possession of a firearm, reasoning that the guilty verdict could not withstand the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment in Bruen (2022). Given President Biden’s scathing criticism of the originalist-leaning Supreme Court’s gun decision and championing of the statutes charged against his son, Hunter’s defense is going to be very awkward for the White House. So, presumably, are the defense signals that the president could be called as a witness.
Fifth, the only case Weiss has brought is the one Hunter Biden case in which Joe Biden had no involvement. Tax charges, for example, that could have been brought against Hunter derive from millions of dollars in foreign payments to buy Joe Biden’s political influence. Because of the way Weiss willfully dawdled, tax offenses deriving from Joe Biden’s time as Obama administration vice president (mainly from 2014 through 2016) are now time-barred. The salient point: The six-year statute of limitations on possible tax crimes, and the five-year statute of limitations on possible bribery, money-laundering, and failure-to-register-as-a-foreign-agent felonies, are still running. Since it’s already getting into late 2023, and the Biden-family influence-peddling scheme had to wind down in 2018–19 when the Biden presidential campaign ramped up, most of the case is already time-barred. And as the statutes of limitations continue ticking away, they are not just ticking as to Hunter Biden; they are ticking as to everyone, including the president.
Sixth, the statute of limitations is make-or-break in criminal prosecutions. It is irrelevant to political accountability. Regardless of today’s indictment, the critical investigation right now is the one being run by the House of Representatives.