Hunter Biden found guilty of illegal possession of firearm

(Wilmington) Hunter Biden was convicted on all three counts related to the 2018 purchase of a revolver.

After two weeks of deliberations, often in the presence of the defendant’s first lady and mother-in-law, Jill Biden, the 12 jurors deliberated for an hour Monday and reconvened around 9 a.m. ET Tuesday in federal court of Wilmington, Delaware, to agree on a verdict.

It must be unanimous under penalty of cancellation of this unprecedented criminal trial against a child of a sitting president.

Hunter Biden, a 54-year-old lawyer and businessman turned artist, has been appearing since June 3 in this city, a stronghold of the Biden clan, for having lied about his drug use when purchasing a Colt-type revolver in the Cobra 2018. in a gun store, a crime in the United States.

Hunter Biden “knew he was a crack user or (that he was) addicted,” insisted prosecutor Leo Wise, in the presence of Jill Biden.

The accused, who did not testify, pleaded not guilty.

His lawyer, Father Lowell, assured jurors that “he was no longer using drugs” when he purchased the gun, which “was never loaded, carried or used during the 11 days it was in his possession.”

The Republican Party, under the orders of Donald Trump, is seeking at all costs to tarnish Joe Biden through his son’s setbacks, even to the point of opening an impeachment investigation against the head of state. At issue: the affairs of the younger Biden in Ukraine and China. So far, no incriminating evidence has been provided.

Hunter Biden is also scheduled to appear in California in September on tax fraud charges.

His business, which is a hot topic for conservative media outlets like Fox News, risks undermining his father’s attempts to draw a contrast with Donald Trump, who was convicted May 30 in a criminal trial of carrying out secret payments to a porn star, a first. for a former president of the United States.

Less than five months before the Nov. 5 election, the Biden couple showed their support for Hunter, with Jill Biden embracing him in the courtroom and Joe Biden expressing his “endless love.”

But the president has pledged not to grant a pardon if he is found guilty.

The trial revived memories of Hunter Biden’s addictions, to which the prosecution returned in detail, going so far as to show a photo taken by an ex-girlfriend showing him shirtless in his bath, a crack pipe protruding from her hand.

Prosecutors also used excerpts from his autobiography “Les Belles Choses.” Hunter Biden says he has never gotten over the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden from brain cancer at the age of 46. Both brothers survived a car accident in 1972 that killed their mother and younger sister.

Then he describes his descent into hell, his wanderings in search of drugs in seedy convenience stores, and his failed attempts at detoxification, between the years 2015 and 2019.

In 2018, he was romantically involved with his brother’s widow, Hallie Biden. She was the one who discovered the gun and threw it in a trash can.

Hallie Biden, as well as Hunter’s first wife and an ex-girlfriend he dated in 2018, have all confirmed his drug issues.

But for the defense, the doubt should benefit it, because Hunter Biden was in withdrawal on October 12, 2018 when he purchased the weapon.

The jury must decide on two counts of lying in the documents necessary for the purchase of the revolver in 2018, and a third on its illegal possession. If convicted on all counts, he theoretically faces up to 25 years in prison, but an alternative sentence to prison could also be decided.