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    Hunter Biden Is Expected to Appeal Conviction on Gun Charges

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    Lawyers for Mr. Biden are considering a number of challenges to the guilty verdict, including one based on the Second Amendment.Hunter Biden is expected to appeal his felony conviction for falsifying a federal firearms application, likely arguing that the judge in the case violated his constitutional rights in her instructions to the jury, according to people in his orbit and legal experts.Mr. Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell has also signaled that any appeal would be based on the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in 2022 that vastly expanded gun rights, a ruling that spawned legal challenges to the part of the federal firearms form at the center of the Biden case. In Mr. Biden’s case, it included a question asking buyers about their drug use.Any appeal would be an uphill climb, and the lawyers representing President Biden’s son cannot officially file one until he is sentenced at the courthouse in Wilmington, Del., within 120 days, or about a month after he is scheduled to go on trial on federal tax charges in Los Angeles.There is still a possibility that David C. Weiss, the special counsel in the case, will seek a plea agreement before the tax trial begins, and would have leverage in negotiations now that Mr. Biden is already a convicted felon, according to former prosecutors. Mr. Biden might have greater incentive to reach a deal to avoid another public airing of his personal ordeal beyond what was presented in Wilmington last week.On Tuesday, after deliberating for a little more than three hours, a jury convicted Mr. Biden of three felony counts related to lying on a federal firearms application and illegally possessing a weapon.Mr. Lowell suggested that he might appeal, vowing to “vigorously pursue all the legal challenges available to Hunter.” President Biden said in a statement that he would “accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hunter Biden’s Trial: A Routine Gun Case, but Abnormal in Every Way

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      At Hunter Biden’s trial, he listened with the jury to his own voice on the audio version of his memoir. “We’ve all been inside rooms we can’t afford to die in,’’ he heard himself say.When the federal prosecutor, Derek Hines, began his opening statement with the words “no man is above the law,” it signified the only rhetorical acknowledgment to the jury that the trial of Hunter Biden was not an ordinary gun charge.Mr. Hines seemed intent on trying a seemingly run-of-the-mill case of a drug addict charged with illegally purchasing a firearm. In doing so, however, it was as if he had instructed the 12 jurors, in the manner of the wizard in “The Wizard of Oz,” to pay no attention to the extraordinary spectacle plainly in view.Pay no attention to the defendant’s last name, the most famous one in Wilmington. Pay no attention to the first lady, Jill Biden, sitting in the front row behind the defendant, whom she raised as her own son. Pay no attention to Mr. Biden’s famous attorney, Abbe Lowell, or to the millionaire Hollywood lawyer also in the front row, Kevin Morris, who is largely bankrolling his friend Mr. Biden’s legal defense.And pay no attention to the 50 or so members of the media taking up most of the spectator space — among them a documentary film team paid for by Mr. Morris.The 12 jurors were left to deduce these matters on their own. Several of them stole glances at the defendant, as if trying to square the image of the 54-year-old man in the dark suit, flag lapel pin and tortoiseshell reading glasses with the crack addict described in the testimony. At one point, Mr. Biden flashed a genetically familiar broad smile while talking to Mr. Lowell during a courtroom break.For the most part, however, the defendant looked the somber part of a man facing up to 25 years in prison. He sat impassively, listening along with the jury to his own voice reciting the audio version of his memoir, “Beautiful Things,” including the observation, “We’ve all been inside rooms we can’t afford to die in.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Rejects Hunter Biden Claim of Selective Prosecution in Gun Case

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      Judge Maryellen Noreika declined to dismiss the charges against the president’s son, saying Mr. Biden’s lawyer failed to show prosecutors had been motivated by animus.The federal judge presiding over Hunter Biden’s gun case in Delaware on Friday rejected Mr. Biden’s claim that he was being subjected to selective prosecution, saying it was “nonsensical” that the Biden Justice Department would target the president’s son.Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, has filed a flurry of motions in the Delaware gun case and a separate indictment in California on tax charges, accusing the government of unfairly singling out his client at the instigation of Republicans and seeking to dismiss the charges. None of those challenges have been successful so far.Judge Maryellen Noreika, who scuttled a plea deal reached between prosecutors and Mr. Biden last summer, said that Mr. Lowell failed to provide evidence that prosecutors had been motivated by animus against Hunter Biden.The “defendant’s claim is effectively that his own father targeted him for being his son, a claim that is nonsensical under the facts here,” Judge Noreika wrote in her 25-page decision.The judge also rejected Mr. Lowell’s claim that David C. Weiss, the special counsel and U.S. attorney in Delaware, had only decided to bring charges against Hunter Biden because of pressure from Republicans in Congress who claimed attempts to reach a plea agreement last year were a “sweetheart deal” intended to protect the Bidens.“Regardless of whether congressional Republicans attempted to influence the executive branch, there is no evidence that they were successful in doing so,” she wrote.A federal grand jury in Wilmington indicted Hunter Biden in September on charges that he lied about his drug use on an application for a Colt pistol in 2018.In response to a question on the form about whether he was using drugs, Mr. Biden said he was not, an assertion that prosecutors concluded was false. Mr. Biden has publicly acknowledged his struggles with addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol and had been in and out of rehab around the time of the gun purchase.If convicted, Mr. Biden could face up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. But nonviolent first-time offenders who have not been accused of using the weapon in another crime rarely get serious prison time for the charges.The decision to file criminal charges against President Biden’s troubled son was an extraordinary step for the Justice Department and Mr. Weiss after the last-minute collapse of a deal that would have granted Hunter Biden broad immunity from future prosecution on gun and tax charges without serving prison time.In December, a separate federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged the president’s son with a scheme to evade federal taxes on millions in income from foreign businesses.Hunter Biden faces three counts each of evasion of a tax assessment, failure to file and pay taxes, and filing a false or fraudulent tax return, according to the 56-page indictment.Both trials are scheduled to begin in June, although the schedules are subject to change. More