Hunter Biden’s first trial, which began this week, is not about conservative allegations that he is at the center of a wide-ranging Biden family corruption scandal. Rather, it focuses on one troubling incident: Hunter’s gun purchase in 2018.
That year, Hunter struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, which is now well known. But when he bought the gun, he checked a box on the paperwork saying he was drug-free. Because of this, prosecutors charged him with three violations of the law in Delaware: two false statement charges and one that bars drug users from possessing firearms. (Prosecutors have also charged him with tax offenses in California, where he is scheduled to stand trial in September.)
Experts say the gun charges are unusual because they focus on an incident about six years ago in which no one was injured and on a defendant who stopped drinking alcohol about five years ago.
Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this week that he doesn’t believe “the average American is indicted on the gun issue” (though his opinion could also reflect a general lack of willingness among Republicans to strictly enforce gun control).
So has Hunter Biden actually been mistreated? Is the Department of Justice treating him more harshly than usual to avoid criticism from Republicans and to demonstrate its independence from politics?
The complex history of the investigation suggests that prosecutors went after Hunter hard because the political climate was turning against them, but it also suggests a more complex story in which prosecutors may not have been particularly keen to prosecute Hunter on many counts, and that his failure to accept a revised deal led to this situation.
The central question is similar to one that arose about Trump’s New York trial and conviction: Did prosecutors take a tougher stance against Trump for political reasons? Defense lawyers in that case argued that charges of falsifying business records were common in Manhattan, but critics argued that many specific aspects of the charges against Trump were so unusual that they were highly unlikely to have been used against anyone other than Trump.
Hunter was certainly a legitimate target of the investigation, and it is not uncommon for prosecutors to harshly punish defendants who do not agree to the terms of their desired plea deals, but it is impossible to separate the politics from this case; they have influenced it from the beginning.
Politics has long clouded the Hunter Biden investigation
In 2018, Hunter Biden, who had worked for years as a lobbyist and then as an adviser and consultant to highly paid foreign clients, was accused of having a serious drug addiction, living an lavish lifestyle and often engaging in erratic behavior.
That year, his bank records showing suspicious transactions attracted the attention of both the Justice Department and the IRS, which launched an investigation. Hunter’s notoriety had an impact almost immediately; IRS agents who launched the investigation said it was prompted in part by media stories about Hunter’s messy divorce, which included allegations that he had spent lavishly on drugs and prostitutes.
However, 2019 and 2020 have made it clear that this is by no means the usual case.
- Joe Biden became the front-runner and then the Democratic nominee to challenge President Trump.
- Trump and his allies began publicly calling for both the Department of Justice and the Ukrainian government to investigate Hunter and the Bidens, ultimately leading to his (first) impeachment.
- A computer shop repairman handed the laptop containing Hunter’s personal information over to the FBI, who eventually turned it over to Rudy Giuliani, who began leaking its contents to the media.
Hunter also gave up drinking during this time and stopped working for foreign clients.
President Trump had hoped to prosecute the Bidens while in office, but with the 2020 election approaching, prosecutors were wary of taking any overt investigative steps that could lead to leaks and affect the election results. Then, when Biden took office, the new president retained David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware who had been overseeing the case (to avoid criticism of meddling in the investigation). The new Attorney General, Merrick Garland, promised to give Weiss independence.
Investigators conducted an extensive investigation into Hunter’s business dealings and, after considering many possibilities, determined that the strongest evidence came from two fronts.
First, there are the taxes: Hunter has failed to file or pay taxes for several years, and investigators believe he lied on his tax returns for a year.
The second was a gun incident. On October 12, 2018, Hunter purchased a gun in Wilmington, Delaware. When purchasing the gun, he filled out paperwork stating that he was not using illegal drugs. The gun became an issue when Hallie Biden (Hunter’s late brother’s widow and then-girlfriend) found out about it and, fearing that Hunter would harm himself, threw the gun in a trash can outside. It was clear from text messages sent by Hunter at the time that he was not particularly stable, but no one was injured.
The gun case was not at the center of the investigation against Hunter, but it was a seemingly clear-cut case of a crime. Hunter wrote in his papers that he was not a drug user, when in fact he was. Many long-running investigations into alleged corruption end with false statements in federal papers, something that is clearly documented, not something vague and difficult to prove. The gun charge was entangled throughout the long-running investigation because prosecutors had some leverage over Hunter.
But by late 2022, U.S. Attorney Weiss decided the case wasn’t strong enough to warrant prosecution, according to The New York Times, which is why she wanted to reach a plea deal with Hunter’s team.
From plea bargaining to double prosecution
Just when the investigation seemed over, officials unhappy with its progress began leaking information to the media and Republican lawmakers. Two IRS employees eventually came forward as whistleblowers, giving public interviews and testifying multiple times before Congress, alleging that the Justice Department had been lenient toward the president’s son, sparking much Republican criticism.
Despite all this, Weiss and Hunter’s team ultimately reached a plea deal, announced in June, in which Hunter would plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and admit to illegally possessing a firearm while under the influence of drugs, and is expected to avoid prison time.
But when the deal went before Judge Mary Ellen Noreika for approval in July, her questioning made it clear that the prosecution and defense had not actually agreed on what the deal meant.
The main disagreement was over the scope of the immunity Hunter would be given. The defense argued that it was understood to give him broad immunity from any charges related to his business from 2016 to 2019. The prosecution said they didn’t see it that way. So Judge Noreika blocked the settlement and told the sides to come to a resolution.
But in the weeks that followed, it became clear they couldn’t come to a settlement. Weiss again offered the same basic deal, but without the immunity guarantee. Hunter’s team rejected it. Weiss then sued Hunter on gun charges in Delaware and tax charges in California (where Hunter was living at the time).
One interpretation of the collapse of the agreement is that the prosecution suddenly became unreasonable and, perhaps in response to political criticism, changed the terms of the immunity agreement that had been initially agreed to.
Weiss’s thinking clearly changed as the whistleblower went public and Republican criticism intensified. There have also been changes in his office: Leslie Wolf, the assistant U.S. attorney who negotiated the plea deal, suddenly appears to have a reduced role, while Leo Weiss, a prosecutor with a reputation for being aggressive, has joined the team.
But some believe Hunter asked for too much. In exchange for settling for a deal that would have ended the tax and firearms cases, Hunter’s team asked for broader immunity for other potential crimes. It’s true that prosecutors were initially willing to grant that, but later changed their stance. But it was up to Hunter to accept the revised deal, and he chose to take his chances in court.
So are the cases against Hunter defensible or politicized? The answer is yes, yes.
The evidence against Hunter in the firearms case appears strong, but it is highly unlikely that it would have been presented if his name had been Hunter Smith. Politics clearly influenced prosecutorial decisions, but that doesn’t mean their decisions were indefensible, and Hunter’s choice mattered here too.
