U.S. President’s Son Hunter Biden Criminally Charged

Hunter Biden, the son of U.S. President Joe Biden, was charged on Thursday with defrauding a gun dealer into selling him a firearm. This is the latest indication that the younger Biden’s legal woes may impact on his father’s re-election bid next year.

In the first-ever indictment of a sitting president’s child, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, Hunter Biden was charged with three criminal counts related to lying about his drug use, which would have prohibited him from possessing a firearm.

The charges ensure that courtroom drama will play a disproportionate role in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, as Joe Biden, 80, seeks reelection in a likely rematch with his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, 77, who faces four impending criminal trials of his own.

The new allegations against Hunter Biden brought by recently elevated U.S. Special Counsel David Weiss say nothing about any violations of U.S. tax law. A prior agreement under which Hunter Biden, 53, would have pled guilty to two misdemeanour tax charges and enrolled in a programme to avoid prosecution on the gun charge collapsed in a July hearing in a startling turn of events.

Weiss previously stated that any potential charges against Biden would have to be brought in either the District of Columbia or the Central District of California, which is situated in Los Angeles.

In October of 2018, prosecutors accused the younger Biden of lying about his drug use when he purchased a Colt Cobra handgun.

The action comes two days after Republicans in the House of Representatives opened an impeachment investigation into Joe Biden over his son Hunter’s international business dealings. The White House has criticised that action, which was taken without a vote by the entire House, as unfounded and politically motivated.

Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, said in a statement, “As anticipated, prosecutors filed charges today that they deemed unwarranted six weeks ago after a five-year investigation into this case.”

Some legal experts have suggested that any firearms-related allegations against Biden may be susceptible to a constitutional challenge, given that the U.S. Supreme Court last year in a landmark decision expanded gun rights under the Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms.

In his statement, Lowell referred to this dispute, noting “the recent rulings by several federal courts that this statute is unconstitutional.”

After investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings for years as the U.S. attorney in the Democratic president’s home state of Delaware, Weiss was appointed special counsel in August.

Trump and his Republican allies have relentlessly attacked the younger Biden for years, accusing him of misconduct in relation to Ukraine and China, among other issues. Hunter Biden has held positions as a lobbyist, attorney, investment banker, and artist, and he has discussed his struggles with substance misuse in public.

While Republican legislators have gathered testimony that Joe Biden occasionally joined calls with his son’s business associates, they have yet to produce evidence that the president benefited personally.

“Today’s charges against Hunter Biden 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 that President Biden’s DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden and the big guy,” said Republican Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, one of the three committees leading the impeachment investigation launched this week.

In December 2020, Hunter Biden disclosed that Weiss’s office was investigating his tax affairs. He has disputed his guilt.

While the majority of U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump were requested to resign when Biden assumed office in January 2021, the Biden Justice Department asked Weiss to remain in his position.

Hunter Biden has never worked in the White House or on his father’s presidential campaign. The president has stated that he has not discussed his son’s foreign business dealings with him and that his Justice Department would conduct any investigation of a family member independently.

Trump and other Republicans have claimed that Hunter Biden’s position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma during the time his father was Vice President under Democratic President Barack Obama created conflicts of interest.

In a July 2019 phone call with Ukraine’s president, Trump requested that the Ukrainian government investigate Joe and Hunter Biden prior to the 2020 presidential election.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives ultimately voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress emanating from these efforts, whereas the Republican-led Senate ultimately voted to keep Trump in office.

In a 2021 memoir, Hunter Biden describes his struggles with substance addiction, including crack cocaine use and alcoholism. According to sources at the time, he was discharged from the U.S. Navy reserve in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine.

Hunter and Ashley Biden are the two surviving further offspring of appropriate age of the elter occupant. His son Beau Biden died of cancer in 2015, and his daughter Naomi Biden perished as an infant in a car tragedy that also claimed the life of Joe Biden’s first wife.

According to Aaron Crawford, a presidential history expert at the University of Tennessee, Hunter Biden appears to be the first child of a reigning president to be indicted.

Weiss Cannot Be Trusted to Investigate Hunter Biden

Republicans Say Weiss Cannot Be Trusted to “Investigate Hunter Biden”