The son of US President Joe Biden is accused of lying when filling out forms to acquire a firearm in 2018. Hunter Biden appears this Tuesday in federal court in Delaware (east) where he must plead not guilty illegal possession of a weapon.
Joe Biden’s son is one of the favorite targets of his father’s Republican opponents, starting with his predecessor Donald Trump, who consider him the Achilles heel of the Democratic president. His lawyer, Abbe David Lowell, indicated that he would plead not guilty during his public arraignment in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, the Biden family’s home state.
Up to twenty-five years in prison
He had requested that his client, a resident of California (west), be able to appear by videoconference. But Judge Christopher Burke denied the request, arguing that this first appearance “is one of the rare occasions in a criminal case in which a defendant physically appears in our court, before a judge.”
In addition, “most of the accusations against the defendant are new and were not mentioned during his previous appearance in July 2023, so this will be the first time that they will be debated in court,” he said. -He underlines. If convicted, Hunter Biden faces up to twenty-five years in prison, but in practice such prosecutions rarely result in prison time alone.
A “plea bargain” canceled
In June he reached a plea bargain with prosecutor David Weiss covering both charges of tax evasion and those of illegal acquisition of a firearm, which would probably have allowed him to avoid prison and an embarrassing trial for him and his father. But this agreement was canceled following doubts expressed in July by a judge about its validity.
Republicans accuse the Democratic administration of doing everything to bury the procedures targeting Hunter Biden. Lawyer then businessman, Hunter Biden converted to painting after recovering from drug and alcohol addictions. Joe Biden told MSNBC in May that he had “faith in him” and was “proud of him”.