Hunter Biden Indicted on Federal Gun Charges, a First for a Member of the First Family

Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s eldest surviving son, was indicted on federal gun charges on Thursday. The younger Biden is the first child of a sitting president – or any member of the First Family – to be indicted.

Summary

Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s eldest surviving son, was indicted on federal gun charges on Thursday. The younger Biden is the first child – or any member of the First Family – of a sitting president to be indicted.

• Hunter Biden’s charges relate to his alleged decision to deceive a gun dealer by lying about his drug use when he purchased a gun in October 2018. Biden was indicted on three counts, including making false statements on a form and possessing a firearm while using drugs.
• His business dealings are also facing scrutiny from federal prosecutors, and he could still face further indictments related to those in Washington and California.
• The charges against Hunter Biden were brought by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who was elevated to special counsel status in August. Weiss was appointed special counsel after the so-called “sweetheart” plea deal he offered Biden imploded under the scrutiny of a federal judge.
• “As expected, prosecutors filed charges today that they deemed were not warranted just six weeks ago following a five-year investigation into this case,” Abbe Lowell, Biden’s attorney, said 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.”
• During an interview on “Good Morning America,” Lowell predicted the charges “will be dismissed before trial.” Lowell once again accused the Biden Justice Department with playing politics with his own son’s indictment.
• Lowell also argued the that “a couple of federal courts have found this gun charge to be unconstitutional.” The irony of the younger Biden making a Second Amendment case against a gun control law his father helped pass will surely create headaches for the administration.
• The White House declined to comment on Lowell’s allegations that the Biden Justice Department “changed” the “law” to prosecute the president’s 53-year-old son.

• The New York Times noted Biden could face up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if convicted. However, “nonviolent first-time offenders who have not been accused of using the weapon in another crime rarely get serious prison time for the charges.”
• Washington Post columnist David Ignatius called for both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to decline to run for reelection. Ignatius argued a second Biden-Harris campaign “risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.”
• Semafor interviewed House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY), who observed: ““This is the least of all the crimes he has committed and the one crime that you can’t tie his father to. I don’t think that anyone that’s keeping up with this investigation that wants to see the truth come out is really impressed with this indictment.”

• Commentary’s John Podhoretz summed up the “lesson” of the Hunter Biden indictment: “There’s only so far you can push things… Hunter Biden was indicted today because he and his lawyers pushed things. They secured a sweetheart plea but when the terms of the deal suddenly looked rather less attractive to them than they had imagined—just minutes before it was all about to be formalized—they chose to blow up the deal. In so doing, they guaranteed that what happened today was going to happen.”
• “Given President Biden’s scathing criticism of the originalist-leaning Supreme Court’s gun decision and championing of the statutes charged against his son,” National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy predicted, “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.”
• “The only thing certain so far is that special counsel David Weiss clearly realized he couldn’t let the statute of limitations pass without indicting Hunter again,” the New York Post Editorial Board wrote. “A majority of Americans now believe he was involved in his son’s business dealings and 55% say he has acted inappropriately over the investigations into Hunter…Perhaps finally, this country can begin to regain trust in the rule of law as the Biden chickens come home to roost and Joe learns — years too late — that the cover-up is always worse than the crime.”

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© Dominic Moore, 2023