America's Talking - Jury Finds Hunter Biden Guilty in Delaware Gun Case

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

A Delaware jury convicted President Joe Biden's son of gun charges on Tuesday, marking the first-ever criminal conviction of a president's son. Special counsel David Weiss indicted Hunter Biden in September 2023 in federal court in Delaware on three counts tied to the possession of a gun while using drugs. Two of the counts involve allegations that he allegedly lied on a form attesting that he was not using illegal drugs when he bought a .38 Special Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018. The third count alleges that he possessed a firearm while using illicit drugs. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, Chief Content Officer Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, June 14th. A jury in Delaware State Court convicted President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, of lying about abusing drugs when purchasing a firearm. Hunter Biden's conviction comes less than two weeks after a New York City jury convicted former President Donald Trump of falsifying business documents to cover up hush money payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels. Joining me to discuss this is Casey Harper, the Senate Squared Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief.

Casey, illicit drug use, illegal gun purchases, payoffs to porn stars, and it's still only June. We still have five months until the presidential election. Who knows what else can happen between now and that? I thought you're describing your college days, but keep going. Seriously, though. Tell us about the jury's verdict in the Hunter Biden case and what it could mean in the bigger picture. I mean, there's no understanding that this is a monumental update in this race. It's, you know, it is June, not October.

Of course, this has been a long time coming in many respects. Hunter Biden has been sort of up to no good, you might say, for a long time. And those chickens have finally come home to roost. You know, I'm not convinced that this is going to be a devastating political blow for President Joe Biden, of course he's having his own struggles against former president Donald Trump in the general election already. But of course it's not a good luck when you're on son is convicted for gun and crack cocaine related charges. And then, you know, so I think, but it's more than canceled out by Trump's own legal problems, which we've detailed, you know, on different times at the Center Square and on this podcast. I'll just say that my reading of the poll so far is that it has to be.

hasn't been a death blow to either of them, but it's just another layer in what's already a very dramatic and complicated race. Because under the Biden administration, particularly Biden's Justice Department, there have been significant concerns among Republicans that there's a two-tier justice system. Prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case initially were ready to give him a sweetheart plea deal where he pleaded down to charges, facing minimal penalties, et cetera. Really a lot of pushback from Republicans forced the prosecutor's hands in this case. Now that we've got a jury verdict, does that alleviate any of that concern in your mind?

I'm not sure it does. I mean, it helps a little bit. But the thing is, you know, most of the analysis on this is saying that Hunter Biden will not go to jail. He will not face jail time. And so I think that that's going to put a sour taste. in the mouth of American voters when, you know, President Trump is facing, you know, I think dozens of years, but he probably won't get that. But I think it's, you know, up to four years per count. And he has over, you know, 30, over 30 counts in his conviction. So meanwhile,

the president's son is not expected to face any jail time. And, you know, I think to the average voter, Hunter Biden's crimes seem more like crimes. I mean, crack cocaine, guns, you know, that kind of thing, whereas Trump's crime is really like a paperwork kind of crime, you know, misfiling or maybe it's more of like a white-collar crime, you might say. And so I think that when, if Trump ends up with a lot of jail time and Hunter Biden ends up with none, it could end up fueling the fire of that two-tier justice system, as you called it. And Trump's, the establishment is out to get me system.

But, you know, I mean, those narrative boosters can only do so much if Trump actually ends up behind bars. I mean, that will be the real wrench in this race. And then Republicans in Congress have been investigating for several years now. Hunter Biden's alleged business dealings overseas with countries like China and Ukraine and Russia. He was appointed to several high-paying boards that he really had no experience in fields that he had no experience in. Republicans in Congress have uncovered all kinds of paper trails that, tie payments to the Biden family, including Hunter Biden, some of which ended up in the president's own bank account.

You think this conviction is going to fuel those investigations or does it change them at all? Maybe not. I don't know. What are you thoughts? It's interesting because the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has sort of languished of late. Earlier this year and late last year, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky was releasing, you know, piece of evidence after piece of evidence. He was claiming, you know, more than 20 shell companies hid all this money that was transferred. It was maybe over, you know, something like $25 million

that was taken from entities in countries like Ukraine, countries like China, you know, and others. And of course, those are very important nations. And the Ukraine has become increasingly imported and raise concerns about, you know, corruption and what are the motivations for us in Ukraine? But, you know, there's countries all over the world allegedly funneling money to this Biden network with the president's brother and son and the money being, you know, shifted around and some of it even ending up in the president's pocket. They had copies of checks over $200,000 that seemingly the president received. Now, he said that was a loan repayment. I don't know. I don't, you know, I'm not in that tax bracket, but, you know, that's a lot of loan repayments of family members.

It was kind of amazing. And so there was a lot of evidence building. And now, you know, we haven't heard much about it. I think that impeachment inquiry has lost steam. I don't think they're ever going to get to that place of actual, you know, impeachment. But it's a bad look for Biden. And it's something that, you know, Trump can use. It's given him a lot of fodder. It adds to the corruption attacks against the president. I don't think that this conviction of the president's son is really going to overlap much. It's just interesting that the president said he won't. pardon his son, which I guess makes sense if his son's not going to go to jail. And, of course, Hunter Biden is expected to appeal his conviction. I was going to say that. So, yeah, there's still plenty of legal process to play out in this case. The fact that the presidential election is in November, depending on what happens there,

if the president loses, he faces no political consequences. He can still pardon Hunter, you know, between the end of the president. election and before he would theoretically leave office if he were to lose to Trump into January. So while he says it now, he would still have an opportunity to pardon Hunter if he so chose. Final words, Casey. Yeah, I mean, I think the final word, you know, I think what you said is a good point. The final word here is, goes back to that idea of is there a two-tier justice system and how does that work exactly? I think what we're seeing here is, you know, something called prosecutorial discretion.

And we're seeing this play out actually in big cities around the country where prosecutors, both at the city level or at the federal level, have huge power in deciding which crimes to prosecute and which crimes not to prosecute. And that's, you know, some of these more liberal prosecutors in these big cities are not prosecuting certain crimes and they saw a large increase in those crimes as a result. And I think you're seeing that same thing play out here. Prosecutors have a ton of discretion on dropping charges, pursuing charges, what charges to go after and what to ignore.

nor. And that's how you can see, for instance, you know, Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump all held on to classified documents after they left the White House, but only Trump was charged, was only prosecutors only went after Trump, right? And there's some nuance there, you know, Pence and Biden were a little nicer about cooperating, but the point stands at the prosecutorial discretion went after Trump. You're seeing that here with, you know, Hunter Biden. I mean, there's, there was more on the table they could have probably tried to go after Hunter Biden with, But turns out the charges that they pursued, oh, end up in no jail time. It's just interesting.

So, you know, I think if listeners are asking, how does this happen? Isn't this all against the law? My advice is to look at the prosecutors. What are the prosecutors pursuing and what are they ignoring when it comes time to file these charges? Thank you for joining us today, Casey. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.