Ben Weingarten Federalist Senior Contributor; Claremont Institute Fellow
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Opinion

Hunter Biden’s gun trial exposes corrupt prosecution

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Ben Weingarten Federalist Senior Contributor; Claremont Institute Fellow
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On Tuesday, June 11, the jury in Hunter Biden’s firearms trial found the president’s son guilty on all three charges. The prosecution alleged that Hunter lied about his personal drug use habits when filling out paperwork to purchase a firearm. Legal experts say that it is rare to bring minor cases like this to trial at all, but the simple paperwork violation nonetheless carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. President Biden has stated publicly that he will not use his executive powers to pardon his son, even if Hunter is sentenced.

Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten retraces the steps of how we got here and where the case might be headed next.


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The following is an excerpt of the above video:

Recall how we got here:

For years, key players at DOJ and FBI seemed to systematically sabotage the real case against Hunter Biden – not pursuing evidence of serious, compromising, national-security-imperiling misconduct, ranging from alleged violations of FARA and tax evasion to perhaps money-laundering and bribery in connection with Hunter’s bag-manning of the Biden family international influence-peddling business. Most egregiously, prosecutors let the statutes of limitation lapse on the most material offenses most closely linked to then-Vice President Biden’s policy portfolio. 

Felony gun charges are piddling when weighed against selling out the country, not to mention the leverage Hunter’s dubious dealings and debauchery might have provided our enemies over us.

A pair of IRS agents, appalled at having witnessed their peers tank the investigation and prosecution of Hunter and his relatives, decided they could not in good conscience sit idly by and brought forth reams of evidence through proper channels indicating how the law enforcement apparatus had protected the Bidens.

Caught in a potential scandal, the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office colluded with Hunter Biden’s legal team to hastily concoct a sweetheart plea deal containing a global immunity get-out-of-jail-free card insulating Biden from the most serious potential charges facing him with a proximity to his father.

Only under questioning about that agreement from Delaware Judge Maryellen Noreika did it collapse, forcing AG Garland to appoint Weiss special counsel and bring the Delaware case [forward].

Corporate media has been transfixed by the Hunter Biden case in Delaware — which probably means they want Americans transfixed by the case too – at least in the way they’ve framed it.

 

I would submit that the real story though are not the alleged crimes, or the innuendo associated with them, but the fact that the case itself looks like part of the cover-up of far more consequential and corrupting offenses – for the prosecutors, and the defense alike.

 

This case, in other words, looks like a purposeful diversion, a political maneuver – and Americans ought to see through it.

 

Now to be fair there are many “shiny objects” to the case, some juicy, and others genuinely newsworthy.

 

There’s the riveting trainwreck that was Hunter Biden’s life at the time he bought and possessed a firearm while attesting to the fact he was not a drug user at the time of the purchase – a trainwreck on full display at trial, replete with lurid details of his cocaine and alcohol abuse, messy relationships, recklessness, and text messages illustrating the associated First Family dysfunction.

 

Then there’s the daily intrigue about the comings-and-goings of Biden relatives and associates evocative of the congressional hearing in The Godfather, in which fictional witness Frank Pentangeli’s relatives’ mere appearance in the audience causes him to recant his testimony.

 

And of course there’s the unbelievable decision of the Justice Department to enter the “laptop from hell” into evidence – what our regime told us was Russian disinformation to protect candidate Biden in 2020, now admitted to be truth.

 

For the prosecution’s part, it has sought to focus jurors not on the wages of Hunter’s addiction, but on his alleged felonious gun crimes – a seemingly open-and-shut case, and one the Department can use to try and blunt claims it’s been politicized and weaponized against conservatives.

 

Hunter Biden’s team by contrast appears to be pursuing a jury nullification strategy according to legal scholars. That strategy is predicated on tugging at the heartstrings of jurors hailing from a state in which the Bidens are royalty, about the tragedies that have befallen their royal family and Hunter’s harrowing struggles with substance abuse – struggles with which many of the jurors are likely to sympathize still further based on their own experiences.

 

Corporate media have reported that Joe Biden is concerned about the case, making this a story about a father’s love for his targeted son as well – turning the Bidens not only into potentially sympathetic characters, but victims.

 

These elements of the case and many more are likely to capture the public’s imagination. But Americans ought not to be distracted from the fact that this case – involving offenses at further remove from Hunter Biden’s father than any others, and in the most favorable venue for the Bidens possible – was never supposed to happen.

 

Inadvertently, the case serves as an indictment of prosecution and defense alike.

 

Recall how we got here:

 

For years, key players at DOJ and FBI seemed to systematically sabotage the real case against Hunter Biden – not pursuing evidence of serious, compromising, national-security-imperiling misconduct ranging from alleged violations of FARA and tax evasion to perhaps money-laundering and bribery in connection with Hunter’s bag-manning of the Biden family international influence-peddling business. Most egregiously, prosecutors let the statutes of limitation lapse on the most material offenses most closely linked to then-Vice President Biden’s policy portfolio.

 

Felony gun charges are piddling when weighed against selling out the country, not to mention the leverage Hunter’s dubious dealings and debauchery might have provided our enemies over us.

 

A pair of IRS agents, appalled at having witnessed their peers tank the investigation and prosecution of Hunter and his relatives, decided they could not in good conscience sit idly by and brought forth reams of evidence through proper channels indicating how the law enforcement apparatus had protected the Bidens.

 

Caught in a potential scandal the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office colluded with Hunter Biden’s legal team to hastily concoct a sweetheart plea deal containing a global immunity get-out-of-jail-free card insulating Biden from the most serious potential charges facing him with a proximity to his father.

 

Only under questioning about that agreement from Delaware Judge Maryellen Noreika did it collapse, forcing AG Garland to appoint Weiss special counsel, and bring the Delaware case.

 

Seen in this light, the prosecution looks like a fig leaf, aimed at rehabilitating the DOJ, while at the same time putting Hunter Biden before the most hospitable possible jury, and all at far remove from conduct remotely relating to his father.

 

The Los Angeles case, also pending, is only slightly less deceptive. It deals with Hunter Biden’s financial crimes at least – crimes stemming from arguably ill-gotten gains from trading on his father’s name, but again without reference to that name in the indictment, and not covering the most egregious “family business” in which Hunter profited from foreign countries like Ukraine while his father managed the relevant policy portfolios as vice president.

 

Don’t be fooled: When it comes to the Hunter Biden cases, the story isn’t about sex, guns, drugs, or even taxes. Rather, it’s about the now-First Family’s global international influence peddling operation, and a government-wide effort to cover it up.

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