With a past strewn with addictions and former dubious affairs abroad, Hunter Biden is one of the favorite targets of his father’s Republican adversaries, starting with his predecessor Donald Trump, who consider him to be the Achilles heel of Joe Biden.
The opening of his trial this Monday comes at a time when the blow of Donald Trump’s historic recognition of guilt in his criminal trial in New York has not yet subsided.
The 54-year-old son is accused by federal prosecutors of lying when filling out forms to acquire a gun in 2018, in which he denied an addiction to drugs – notably crack cocaine – which he admitted to the following.
Also indicted for tax fraud in another case, Hunter Biden is defending himself here on three counts to which he pleaded not guilty in October.
A maximum of 25 years in prison
A jury in Wilmington, the Biden stronghold in Delaware (east), will have to decide on two counts relating to the possibly fraudulent filling out of documents necessary for the purchase of a firearm, and a third on the illegal possession of this weapon.
He held it for just 11 days, before his girlfriend threw it in a trash can.
Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training then a lobbyist, fell into alcoholism and drugs before emerging from his torments and now paints.
Joe Biden, although he has never spoken in detail about his youngest son’s legal troubles, has always assured him of his paternal love.
But the Democrats have no interest in the news of this trial – and possible remarks that Joe Biden could make to the press on this subject – replacing the press headlines on the conviction of Donald Trump in New York .
If convicted after trial, Hunter Biden could be sentenced to a maximum of 25 years in prison – in practice, few convicted of similar offenses actually go behind bars.
Four years of addiction
During the two weeks of hearing planned, he will undoubtedly be summoned his book “Les Belles Choses” (2021), in which he recounts the vodka drunk from the bottle, the nocturnal wanderings in search of crack around seedy convenience stores, the attempts failed detoxification, short-lived love affairs with his brother’s widow…
Hunter Biden claims to have finished four years of addiction in 2019 – that is, after the controversial purchase of the revolver.
However, in 2018, on a form for purchasing a firearm, he described himself as not a drug addict – a contradiction at the heart of the prosecution’s argument, considering that this is a lying, punishable by American law.
But the defense disputes this lie, arguing that Hunter Biden did not consider himself, at the time of filling out the form, to be a drug addict and emphasizes that the term was not explained to him. “Someone like Mr. Biden, who had just finished 11 days of treatment and was then living with someone sober, might actually have thought that he was not, at that time, a (drug) user ) or a drug addict,” his lawyer Abbe Lowell wrote in court documents before the trial began.
An impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden
In Congress, elected Republican officials have opened an impeachment investigation against Joe Biden, accusing him of having used his influence when he was vice-president of Barack Obama (2009-2017) to allow his son Hunter to make business in China and Ukraine.
But no evidence has really been provided on this subject, and the courts have not charged him in this regard.
Hunter Biden was also indicted in December for tax fraud, accused of having evaded, through a “scheme”, the obligation to pay $1.4 million in taxes. He has pleaded not guilty and a trial is expected this year in California.
