Hunter Biden was arrested in October 2018, federal prosecutors argued Tuesday, in a scathing response to his eldest son's attempt to have weapons charges dismissed.
Five years after her now 53-year-old sister-in-law and boyfriend Harry Biden dumped Hunter's gun in a trash can behind a grocery store in Delaware, FBI officials reexamined it.
Sometime last year, investigators removed a sealed Colt Cobra .38 SPL revolver from state police storage to shoot the gun and found white powder on the pouch the gun was in. discovered. Court filings from Special Counsel David Weiss revealed.
“An FBI chemist then analyzed the residue and determined it was cocaine,” the 52-page document says.
“To be clear, investigators literally found drugs in the pouch where the defendant kept his gun,” the prosecutor's motion added.
Last month, Weiss' team responded to a motion filed by Hunter Biden's lawyers to dismiss the firearms charges.
In their rebuttal, Weiss' team detailed the evidence needed to confirm that the troubled eldest son was using illegal drugs at the time he completed the background check to purchase the pistol. In the process he said he was not dependent on any illegal drugs and had not committed any federal crimes.
At another point in their rebuttal, prosecutors referenced Hunter Biden's 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things,” in which he “made numerous incriminating statements about his years of drug use.” said.
“Defendant's choice to sell the book containing these confessions not only strengthened the government's case against him, but also increased its general deterrent value to potential prosecutors,” Weiss' team wrote. ing.
Hunter Biden moved forward with his book after prosecutors learned that local authorities had recovered a weapon from an elderly man who was sorting recycling from trash cans and that there was an ongoing federal investigation into the matter. He pointed out.
They also pointed to messages, including one that Hunter exchanged with Harry, who disposed of the weapon about 11 days after purchasing it.
Hunter Biden's defense team, led by attorney Abby Lowell, argued that Weiss bowed to “political pressure” in filing the firearms charges in Delaware.
In July, Hunter Biden entered into a no-prison plea deal on two misdemeanor charges of willful failure to pay taxes and was set to enter a diversion program on a federal firearms felony charge.
But the deal fell apart during a dramatic court hearing when it became clear to the eldest son's lawyers that the deal did not provide blanket immunity for other crimes.
A month later, Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, was appointed special prosecutor by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Hunter currently faces three federal gun-related felony charges related to the ordeal.
He also faces three felonies and six misdemeanors pending in Los Angeles for allegedly evading $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2019.
“Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter's last name were anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware and now California would not have been filed,” Rowell said. said last month.
Prosecutors vehemently denied the defense's claims Tuesday.
“Contrary to his claims, a special counsel appointed by and serving at the pleasure of President Biden and the Attorney General is trying to punish the defendant “for the perceived crimes of the father'' in order to coerce the former defendant into submission. “He has not proven that he did. He is the president because of his tweets,” Weiss' team argued.
“This theory is fiction created for Hollywood scripts.”
Hunter Biden has used his drug addiction and recovery efforts as a cudgel against Congress and legal oversight, even though he now claims to have achieved sobriety.
“My struggles and mistakes are [President Biden]Then, my reputation was completely destroyed by a contentious but fruitless Congressional investigation, and more recently by a criminal charge five years ago for possessing an unloaded gun for 11 days. This is believed to be the first such accusation in history. in Delaware history,” he wrote in a USA Today op-ed last year.
Lowell's company did not respond to requests for comment.
Hunter Biden ignored a subpoena and refused to testify in the Republican-led House impeachment inquiry last month after Republicans requested that he appear in public.
He is reportedly currently negotiating to appear before the House Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee.
