Hunter Biden’s gun case is closed by a judge following the president’s pardon

After his father’s presidential pardon, a court on Tuesday concluded Hunter Biden’s federal gun case.

Citing President Biden’s executive grant of mercy to his son, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika delivered a brief ruling ending all proceedings in the case.

Hunter Biden, 54, was convicted in June of lying about using illegal drugs six years prior when he tried to purchase a gun and then illegally holding it.

The president’s son denied using or being addicted to illegal drugs on a federal gun purchase form when he bought a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver in 2018. He then held the gun illegally for eleven days.

The jury’s guilty verdict was the first time a sitting president’s kid had been found guilty of a crime.

Biden cleaned his son’s slate on Sunday. Reversing earlier pledges to uphold his son’s conviction in the gun case and a second federal tax case, he granted Hunter Biden a complete and unconditional pardon that goes back to January 2014.

Biden stated in a statement announcing the pardon that he believes in the legal system but also that his son’s case was tainted by raw politics.

He stated, “I hope Americans will understand why a president and a father would make this decision.”

In court documents, special counsel David Weiss stated that accusations of selective prosecution were baseless and disputed that politics played a role in his handling of Hunter Biden’s case.

Weiss objected to the charges being dropped, claiming that the court ought to stop all proceedings and end the case by merely issuing a pardon as the final decision. It seems that the distinction is mostly procedural.

He said that the pardon neither exposes any shortcomings in Hunter Biden’s indictment nor absolves him of responsibility.

Hunter Biden’s cocaine addiction, which he and his father, the president, have publicly described as a struggle made worse by the 2015 death of his brother, Beau Biden, was brought to light during his roughly week-long gun trial this summer.

Although the harshest penalties are rarely meted out to first-time offenders, he risked a potential term of 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Federal sentencing guidelines were more closely followed with a sentence of 15–21 months in prison.

The judge postponed his sentencing, which was originally set for December 12.

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