OAN’s Brooke Mallory
5:10 PM – Monday, December 11, 2023
Hunter Biden claimed that Special Counsel David Weiss “buckled under political pressure” in pursuing his gun charges indictment, and he filed a number of petitions contesting the charges levied against him in Delaware.
Hunter filed a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that it is a “vindictive prosecution,” along with a number of other arguments, one of which claimed that Weiss was improperly appointed special counsel.
In regards to the gun charges, he was scheduled to enter a guilty plea under a plea bargain, however, his legal defense tried to argue that the Second Amendment safeguards his ability to purchase a firearm even in the event of drug usage and that he should be immune under the previous agreement.
Hunter Biden contended that Weiss’s original strategy for handling the case was the plea deal that would have placed him in a pretrial diversion program for lying about his history of drug use when he bought a firearm.
“The announcement that this case would be resolved through a Diversion Agreement and a Plea Agreement drew a sharp rebuke from former President Trump (who appointed Mr. Weiss), extremist House Republicans, and the far-right media. They made it clear that they wanted Mr. Weiss to keep this litigation alive through the presidential election,” Biden’s legal team wrote.
“Because the facts in the case did not change and the law only became more difficult for such prosecutions, the public record supports no conclusion other than [that] Mr. Weiss changed his decision because he buckled under political pressure to bring more severe charges,” they continued.
Some have compared the document to a seperate one that was submitted by Trump, who asked for the accusations against him in the federal election meddling investigation to be dropped on the grounds that they are driven by politics.
Additionally, according to Hunter’s attorneys, federal prosecutors allegedly broke a plea deal that would have excluded the weapons allegations entirely.
They claimed that the current president’s son “gave up various rights,” including his Fifth Amendment right to stay quiet, in return for an agreement that was meant to protect him from crimes involving the acquisition of weapons.
“As the prosecution told the Court, ‘based on the terms of the agreement… We cannot bring firearms charges based on the firearm identified in the factual statement to the Diversion Agreement,’” Hunter Biden’s counsel wrote. “Nevertheless, the prosecution did just that by subsequently bringing this indictment charging Mr. Biden with three felony firearm offenses, which all relate to the firearm identified in the Diversion Agreement’s factual statement.
“Because Mr. Biden gave up valuable rights as part of this contract, in exchange for the prosecution’s promise not to prosecute him,’such promise must be fulfilled,’” the attorneys added.
In September, Biden was accused by federal prosecutors of three gun-related crimes: two counts of concealing drug usage from potential gun buyers and one count of illegally possessing a handgun while under the influence of a controlled substance.
He entered a not guilty plea to both.
After a plea bargain with the government collapsed last summer due to concerns about the terms of the agreement from the judge supervising the case, he entered a not guilty plea on all counts. In accordance with the terms of the arrangement, he would have avoided a formal accusation relating to guns by entering a guilty plea to two tax violations.
In addition, Biden presented the much-awaited defense that his gun possession accusation is “illegal in light of the Supreme Court’s historic Second Amendment rights ruling,” referencing the NYSRPA vs. Bruen case last year.
One federal appeals court has already declared the legislation to be “unconstitutional,” according to Biden’s counsel. They claimed that if the accusation in Biden’s case is shown to be unfounded, the other charges would follow suit.
“While Congress could criminalize gun possession from someone who was actively intoxicated, or perhaps someone who at least actively had a controlled substance in their body, a prohibition on gun ownership by anyone who had at some time used a controlled substance is constitutionally overbroad under Bruen,” Biden’s attorneys wrote.
Weiss’s power as special counsel is also called into doubt in the lawsuit, which asserts that he cannot hold both positions concurrently since he is the U.S. Attorney for Delaware.
“That appointment is flatly precluded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s own regulations setting the ‘Qualifications of the Special Counsel,’ which provide: ‘The Special Counsel shall be selected from outside the United States Government,’” Biden’s attorneys continued.
The filings, which mainly relied on personal information to prove that Biden had disregarded his tax obligations, presented three felonies and six misdemeanors in California. These documents provided a glimpse into Biden’s potential response to the second indictment presented by Weiss last week.
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