Hunter Biden, the son of the president of the United States, Joe Biden, approaches the dock. The Delaware federal judge in charge of the case, Maryellen Noreika, has issued several resolutions this Friday in which she rejects the motions of the defendant's lawyers to dismiss the case in which he is accused of the illegal purchase and possession of a gun. The start date of the trial in a court in Wilmington (Delaware) is provisionally set for June 3. Hunter Biden is also charged with alleged tax crimes in California.
The accused alleged that he had been “selectively accused for an improper political purpose” because he is the son of the incumbent president, who is also a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections on November 5. “To prevail on his claim of selective prosecution, the defendant must demonstrate that the special counsel's decision to abandon [the out-of-court settlement for] the pretrial diversion on the firearms charges and proceed to prosecution was 'motivated by a discriminatory purpose' and had a 'discriminatory effect'. "The accused has not proven one or the other," says the judge's resolution.
Joe Biden's son is charged with three crimes in Delaware and is charged with nine other counts of tax crimes in California. In the case of weapons, according to the prosecutor, he lied when he assured that he was clean of drugs when he bought a 38-caliber Colt Cobra in 2018. The charge sheet maintains that Hunter Biden presented a written statement “in which he certified that he was not illicit user or addict of any stimulant, narcotic or any other controlled substance, when in reality, as he knew, said statement was false and fictitious.” Special prosecutor David Weiss accuses him of two crimes for these alleged falsehoods (one for the alleged false information on the form and another for lying to the seller of the weapon) and a third for the subsequent possession of the weapon, which would also be illegal due to his addictions. . Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty at a hearing last October.
A few months ago, the accused admitted the facts as part of an agreement by which the prosecutor renounced criminal prosecution of the crime in exchange for him staying away from drugs for two years and giving up having a firearm in the home. future. It is a common agreement in similar cases in which the accused have been rehabilitated and have no criminal record. The president's son has acknowledged battling a crack addiction during that period in 2018, but his lawyers maintain that he did not break the law and that another nonviolent, first-time offender would not have been charged.
The agreement to file the gun case also admitted the commission of two crimes of tax fraud in 2017 and 2018 (already regularized with the payment of one million dollars) for which he was going to be sentenced to lesser penalties, predictably avoiding entry in prison.
The different interpretation of the agreement between the prosecution and the defense and the pressure from the Republicans, who saw in the pact a favorable treatment for the president's son, completely changed the situation. The prosecutor finally decided to file charges for the purchase and possession of the weapon in Delaware and for the alleged tax crimes in California.
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In her ruling this Friday, Judge Noreika argues that Hunter Biden's lawyers have not provided “anything concrete” to support the conclusion that someone really influenced the special counsel's team. “The pressure campaign by Congressional Republicans may have occurred around the time the special counsel decided to move forward with the prosecution in lieu of pretrial diversion, but the court has received nothing credible to suggest that the conduct of those legislators (or anyone else) had any impact on the special counsel. “It’s all speculation,” she points out.
The judge has also rejected dismissal of the case based on the immunity conferred by the case diversion agreement that had initially been reached and then abandoned by the prosecutor. A ruling is pending on whether criminalizing the purchase and possession of a weapon without being drug-free violates the right to possess firearms contained in the United States Constitution.