Hunter Biden Has Officially Been Indicted – It’s official: Hunter Biden has been charged with a crime.
Special Counsel David Weiss brought the indictment against Hunter Biden on Thursday, marking the first time a sitting president’s son has been charged with a crime. Specifically, Hunter has been charged with two counts for alleged false statements he made while purchasing a gun, and a third for possession of the gun while addicted to narcotics.
Hunter allegedly purchased the handgun in Delaware in October 2018. He would not recover from a crack cocaine addiction until the following May.
The maximum penalty for the charges against him is 25 years’ imprisonment.
The Story So Far on Hunter Biden
After charges against President Joe Biden’s 53-year-old son were announced in June, Hunter’s defense team sought a plea agreement in which he would plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors in exchange for the gun offense being dropped.
This deal – branded as a “sweetheart” agreement by Republicans – was thrown out at the last minute by Delaware District Judge Maryellen Noreika. Negotiations between the two parties reached an impasse on August 11, effectively confirming an unprecedented future court date for the president’s son.
Weiss was elevated to special counsel status on the same date, and announced a likely indictment against Hunter by the end of the month. The indictment is not connected to a separate investigation by the House Oversight Committee, who have been probing Hunter’s foreign business dealings amid pressure from right-wing Republicans to impeach President Joe Biden.
Reactions
Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said the decision to charge the president’s son “presents a grave threat to our system of justice.”
“As expected, prosecutors filed charges today that they deemed were not warranted just six weeks ago following a five-year investigation into this case,” he said Thursday in a statement. “The evidence in this matter has not changed in the last six weeks, but the law has and so has MAGA Republicans’ improper and partisan interference in this process.”
“Hunter Biden possessing an unloaded gun for 11 day was not a threat to public safety, but a prosecutor, with all the power imaginable, bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice.”
“We believe these charges are barred by the agreement the prosecutors made with Mr. Biden, the recent rulings by several federal courts that this statute is unconstitutional, and the facts that he did not violate that law, and we plan to demonstrate all of that in court,” Lowell added.
House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer also commented on the issue, saying that the charges “are a very small start.”
“But unless U.S. Attorney Weiss investigates everyone involved in the fraud schemes and influence peddling, it will be clear President Biden’s DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden and the big guy,” he added.
Shay Bottomley is a British journalist based in Canada. He has written for the Western Standard, Maidenhead Advertiser, Slough Express, Windsor Express, Berkshire Live and Southend Echo, and has covered notable events including the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
