Hunter Biden’s criminal trial begins with jury selection on Monday morning in Delaware. The trial stems from federal firearms charges brought against him by special prosecutor David Weiss.
Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to federal firearms charges in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware after Weiss charged him with making false statements regarding the purchase of a firearm, making false statements regarding information required to be kept by a firearms dealer, and possession of a firearm by an unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance.
Combined, the charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 25 years. Each charge carries a maximum fine of $250,000 and three years probation.
The trial begins nearly a year after Presiding Judge Marylen Noreika cast doubt on a plea deal between prosecutors and Hunter Biden, which then fell apart.
Judge bars prosecutors from using salacious evidence in Hunter Biden gun trial
President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has reportedly told people he may have to “flee” the country if President Trump wins in 2024. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The agreement, derided by Republican lawmakers as a “sweet” deal, is expected to give the president’s son broad immunity from many potential criminal prosecutions.
According to the indictment, Hunter Biden purchased a Colt Cobra revolver on Oct. 12, 2018, and “knowingly made false written statements with the intent and likelihood to deceive dealers regarding facts material to the lawfulness of the sale of firearms…He certified that he was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, any stimulants, narcotics or other controlled substances, when in fact he knew the statements were false and fictitious.”
The indictment also alleges that Hunter Biden possessed the gun “shipped and transported in interstate commerce” for nearly a week despite being addicted to drugs.
Hunter Biden is in court in Delaware. Here’s what he doesn’t want the jury to hear.
Fox News first reported in 2021 that police responded to a 2018 incident in which a gun belonging to Hunter was tossed in a trash can outside a market in Delaware.
A source familiar with the Oct. 23, 2018 police report told Fox News that it suggests Hallie Biden, the widow of President Biden’s late son Beau and who was in a relationship with Hunter at the time, threw out Hunter’s gun in a trash can behind a market near the school.
Hallie Biden may be called to testify during Hunter Biden’s trial.
Special Counsel David Weiss (Ministry of Justice)
Hunter purchased the gun earlier that month, according to a firearms transaction report reviewed by Fox News.
In the firearms trafficking report, Hunter responded in the negative when asked if he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, sedatives, stimulants, narcotics or other controlled substances.”
Hunter was discharged from the Navy in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine.
Hunter Biden pleads not guilty to federal firearms charges in special counsel David Weiss’ investigation
Prior to the trial, Judge Noreika ruled that Weiss’s defense team could not use the salacious evidence in her eldest son’s criminal cases, including his Navy discharge and a child support case against his unmarried daughter who lives in Arkansas.
Hunter Biden leaves a meeting of the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 10. On Friday, a judge denied a motion to dismiss the federal firearms case against him. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Noreika also said Weiss must prove that Hunter Biden was addicted to drugs but wasn’t necessarily using drugs on the day he bought the gun.
Noreika said the government could use portions of Hunter Biden’s book in which he discusses drug addiction.
Prosecutors will not turn over the infamous laptop, which detailed Hunter Biden’s life, in its entirety, but they will turn over parts of it. Judge Noreika ruled that Hunter Biden’s team can question parts of the laptop in front of the jury. The laptop, which was leaked just before the 2020 presidential election, has been denounced by 51 former intelligence officials as Russian disinformation.
Judge Noreika also ruled that the special counsel cannot mention during the Delaware trial Hunter Biden’s pending federal tax trial in California, which is also part of Judge Weiss’ investigation and is scheduled to go to trial in September.
A courtroom sketch depicting Hunter Biden in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, on July 26, 2023. (Courtesy of William J. Hennessy Jr.)
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to those charges, specifically three felony and six misdemeanor counts relating to $1.4 million in back taxes that had already been paid. Weiss alleged a “four-year scheme” in which the president’s son did not pay federal income taxes between January 2017 and October 2020, and also filed false tax returns.
Hunter Biden tax trial postponed to September
Judge Mark Scarce heard arguments at a pretrial hearing in California last month. That criminal trial had been scheduled for June 20, but Hunter Biden’s lawyers have asked for the trial to be postponed.
Scarce sided with Hunter Biden’s lawyers to postpone the tax trial until Sept. 5, when jury selection is due to begin.
