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Hunter Biden Indicted on Gun Charges: What Makes the Case Unusual

Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, was indicted on Thursday on three felony gun charges in Delaware. According to The Washington Post, the charges include making false statements to a federally licensed gun dealer, making false claims on a federal firearms application, and possession of an illegally obtained gun.

The charges against Hunter Biden have raised concerns about President Biden’s political future. Many Democrats are unhappy with his decision to run for re-election in 2024, and the allegations against his son have only added to their dissatisfaction. Some are calling for the 80-year-old president to step aside and make way for the next generation. The situation surrounding Hunter Biden could have implications for President Biden’s ability to govern effectively.

The indictment marks another tremor in what has already been a tumultuous 2024 presidential campaign. The current front-runner for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump, is facing four separate indictments on a host of allegations, including two from the same Justice Department that has charged Hunter Biden, and could also find himself on trial before the next presidential election.

The White House declined to comment on Thursday, referring questions to the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s lawyers. Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, said that in charging the president’s son, Weiss had caved to improper pressure from Republicans.

According to The New York Times, the indictment charges Biden with making two false statements in filling out the paperwork to purchase a gun on October 12, 2018. He claimed to not be addicted to or using illegal drugs, the indictment says, “when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious.” Count three of the indictment charges Biden with unlawfully possessing that gun, a Colt revolver, for 11 days following the purchase.

If convicted, the maximum sentence for the most serious crime in the indictment is 10 years in prison, but under federal sentencing guidelines, Biden, who has acknowledged being addicted to drugs at the time of the gun purchase, would probably face far less time.

Part of Biden’s failed plea deal would have required him to enter a pretrial diversion program, an option typically applied to nonviolent offenders with substance abuse problems. In all, Biden would have spent about two years on probation but avoided jail time if he kept to the terms of the deal, which included not owning a gun or engaging in criminal conduct.

Lying on the government forms needed to purchase a firearm represents a small percentage of the nation’s overall firearm-related prosecutions. Between October 2022 and March 2023, federal prosecutors filed 3,863 cases in which the unlawful possession of a firearm was the lead charge, according to Syracuse University’s TRAC database, which gathers federal data. In 130 of those cases, or about 3 percent, the lead unlawful-possession charge was related to making a false statement to acquire the weapon.

Even after the indictment, congressional Republicans on Thursday continued to question whether the Justice Department was adequately pursuing the case. Representative James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said he thought the gun charges were “the one crime you can’t tie back to Joe Biden.”

On the face of it, Hunter Biden appears at risk of being sentenced to as long as 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if he is convicted on the three gun charges brought against him. In reality, few people fitting Mr. Biden’s profile — a first-time, nonviolent offender accused of lying on a federal firearms application, who never used the gun to commit a crime — get serious prison time for the offenses charged in the indictment.

Just bringing the charges is out of the ordinary in some ways, former law enforcement officials say, and the legal basis of the prosecution is under constitutional challenge. Hunter Biden’s legal team has long argued that prosecutors rarely indict people on such gun violations unless the charge can be tied to more serious crimes.

The charges against Hunter Biden have raised questions about the legal basis of the case and the potential implications for the 2024 presidential election. With the indictment, the Justice Department has sent a message that no one is above the law, but the outcome of the case could have a major impact on the political landscape.

This article was written using sources from The Washington Post and The New York Times.