Thursday, March 14, 2024 – A federal judge ruled that Hunter Biden will face a trial on federal gun charges on June 3 in Delaware.
The president's son, 54, has pleaded not guilty to three
felony charges related to him lying about his drug use when purchasing a gun in
2018. He faces up to 25 years in prison if he is convicted after the trial that
could last up to nine days.
His gun trial on June 3 comes immediately for a separate
trial in a case brought by Special Counsel David Weiss on nine tax charges set
for June 20 in California.
Hunter tried to avoid the spectacle of a full trial by
entering into what Republicans dubbed a 'sweetheart' plea deal with DOJ. But it
fell apart spectacularly last summer and he is now facing the two jury trials.
It will surely cause a headache for his father Joe, who just
secured the Democratic nomination for president last night going into the 2024
campaign swing.
Last month, Weiss published photos from
Hunter's iPhone and hard drive that the prosecutor said were proof he
was using cocaine when he bought a gun.
But Hunter's legal team says DOJ mistook sawdust for lines
of cocaine during their investigation.
Hunter's lawyers say the image in question was actually sent
to his psychiatrist by someone else as a joke.
'The prosecution is flat out wrong - both that Mr. Biden
"took" this photograph and in claiming that it depicts
"cocaine",' Biden's lawyers said.
'Multiple sources have pointed out, and a review of
discovery confirms, this is actually a photo of sawdust from an expert
carpenter and it was sent to Mr. Biden, not vice versa.'
'More specifically, the discovery identifies this as a photo
of a photo taken in the office of Mr. Biden’s then-psychiatrist Dr. Keith
Ablow,' Hunter's lawyers said.
The court documents said Dr. Ablow initially received the
image from a patient, who was a master carpenter, and later texted it to
Hunter.
In his text to Hunter, the doctor wrote: 'This one in my
office is of lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was a coke
addict.'
'The message accompanying that photo was meant to convey
that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction,' Hunter's lawyers wrote.
They went on: 'Mistaking sawdust for cocaine sounds more
like a storyline from one of the 1980s Police Academy comedies than what should
be expected in a high-profile prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice.'
Abbe Lowell, Hunter's lawyer, said the sawdust mistake
'amplifies why Mr. Biden and the court could not take what the prosecution said
'at face value'.
Weiss has charged Hunter Biden with crimes including lying
about his drug use when he purchased a gun in 2018. The president's son has
pleaded not guilty.
Hunter Biden's lawyers accused the prosecution of being
'reckless' by making a 'hyperbolic and sensational' claim in relation to the
sawdust picture.
They said it would 'prejudice Mr. Biden in the public eye.'
The row over the picture came as Hunter's lawyers filed a
22-page document relating to the sharing of evidence between the prosecution
and defense.
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