Federal gun cases President Joe BidenSon hunter Jury selection began Monday after a plea deal collapsed that would have avoided a trial before the 2024 election. First lady Jill Biden sat in the front row of the courtroom to show her support for her son.
The president said in a statement that as a father he has “infinite love for my son, great confidence in him, and respect for his strength.”
“I'm the president, but I'm also a father,” he said, adding that he would not comment further on the matter. “Jill and I love our son, and we are proud of the man he has become today.”
Hunter Biden, who spent the weekend with his parents, has been charged with three felonies in Delaware stemming from gun purchases he made in 2018 while, according to his memoir, he was in the throes of a drug addiction. He is accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, falsely claiming on an application form used to screen gun applicants that he was not a drug user, and illegally possessing a gun for 11 days.
He has pleaded not guilty and argued he was treated unfairly by the Justice Department after Republicans decried the now-defunct deal as special treatment for the Democratic president's son.
The trial comes days after Republican 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in New York City. A jury found the former president guilty of one count of concealing hush money payments to a porn actor to avoid damage to his 2016 presidential campaign. The two criminal cases are unrelated, but their similarities highlight how criminal courts are taking center stage during the 2024 campaign.
The judge will ask a panel of potential jurors a series of questions to determine whether they can serve impartially, including whether they have ever donated to a political campaign or run for public office. She will ask whether their views on the 2024 presidential race would prevent them from being impartial.
She will also ask prospective jurors whether they believe Hunter Biden was prosecuted because his father is president. She will also ask about gun purchases and addiction, including: “Do you think people who are addicted to drugs should not be charged with crimes?”
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Hunter Biden is also set to face another trial in California in September on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes. Both cases were set to be resolved in a deal with prosecutors last July, the culmination of a year-long investigation into his business dealings.
But Judge Maryellen Noreika, nominated by Trump, questioned some unusual aspects of the deal, including a proposed guilty plea to a misdemeanor to resolve tax crimes and a diversion agreement on gun charges that meant the case would be dismissed as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years. The lawyers bickered over the deal, unable to reach a resolution, and it fell apart. Attorney General Merrick Garland then named the lead investigator as a special counsel in August, and Hunter Biden was indicted a month later.
The trial will not be about Hunter Biden’s overseas business affairs — which Republicans have seized on to try to paint the Biden family as corrupt without evidence. But it will dig up some of Hunter Biden’s darkest moments and bring them to light.
The president’s allies worry about the impact the trial could have on the elder Biden, who has long cared about the health and sobriety of his only living son and must now watch his son’s painful past mistakes come under public scrutiny. He’s also protective: Hunter Biden spent entire weekends with his father before the case began, riding bikes with him and attending church together.
President Biden returned to his Wilmington residence from his home in Rehoboth Beach on Sunday evening in a last-minute change of plans. Boarding the helicopter on Sunday was the only time the president was seen in public without his son all weekend.
Hunter Biden arrived first at the Delaware courthouse on Monday. The first lady, who turned 73 on Monday, followed about 15 minutes later, briskly walking into the courtroom escorted by U.S. Secret Service agents. Hunter Biden's sister, Ashley Biden, also supported him in court. The president remained at their home in Wilmington until leaving later in the day for a campaign reception in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Allies also worry that the trial could be a distraction for the president as he tries to campaign amid weak poll numbers and prepares for the upcoming presidential debates.
Prosecutors hope to prove that Hunter Biden lied on the forms because he was high on drugs when he bought the guns. They said they plan to use his published memoir as evidence, and they may also introduce the contents of a laptop he left at a Delaware repair shop and never retrieved. Those contents, which found their way into Republican hands and were publicly leaked in 2020, revealed embarrassing and private photos of Hunter Biden, often nude and taking drugs, and information about him asking drug dealers for drug deals.
Hunter Biden’s case stems from a period of cocaine addiction he publicly acknowledged. He began to develop drug and alcohol addiction after his brother Beau Biden died of cancer in 2015. In October 2018, he purchased a gun, kept it for 11 days, and noted on the gun purchase form that he was not taking drugs.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty in both cases, and his lawyers have said they may argue that he did not consider himself an addict when prosecutors say he answered “no” to that question on the form. They also may attack the credibility of the gun store owner.
Meanwhile, prosecutors also plan to call as witnesses Hunter Biden's ex-wife and his brother's widow, Hallie, with whom he had a romantic relationship.
If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison, but the sentence for a first offense is far from the maximum and it is unclear whether the judge will sentence him to prison.
–Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
