I won't go into how this case was brought in order to appease Trump supporters, with other prosecutors saying they would never have brought it to trial, and that it was unique in this type of case for having been brought.* Nonetheless, karma.
Now let's see how decent people handle guilty charges as compared to Trump's handling of his.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE 11:17 am:
UPDATE 02:05 pm:
*But Harry Litman will.
I'm sure he doesn't care. He has a win under his belt.Notwithstanding defense arguments that the government failed to pinpoint Biden’s drug use as occurring precisely when he bought the gun, the jurors had ample basis to conclude that he was in the throes of a crack cocaine addiction before, during and after the transaction.
The case’s substantial flaws lay not in the evidence but rather in special counsel David Weiss’ decision to bring it in the first place, in effect throwing the book at President Biden’s son. That was an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
LA Times
The fact is that it hasn’t been Justice Department practice to prosecute anyone for lying on the federal firearms form unless a gun is used in a crime or, in rare cases, another extenuating factor exists — known involvement in a criminal gang, for example. Hunter Biden, by contrast, possessed his gun for all of 11 days and never used it.
Weiss, a former U.S. attorney held over from the Trump administration to avoid any appearance of political interference with the Biden investigation, initially handled the case in a way that was consistent with those facts. After a five-year investigation, the Justice Department proposed to dispose of the case with a diversion agreement, which would have allowed Biden to avoid punishment on the gun charge if he stayed out of trouble for two years. Biden agreed.
The plea agreement was all but signed, sealed and delivered when it was presented in a Delaware federal court in July 2023, whereupon it stood to be swiftly consummated 999 times out of 1,000. But it was Biden’s terrible luck that the agreement was poorly written to suggest that U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika would make the final determination as to whether the terms were satisfied. The judge understandably balked at this unorthodox provision, and the agreement unraveled in court.
[...]
The month after it fell apart, Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland made Weiss a special counsel, giving him free rein to continue investigating Biden.
[...]
Had a rank-and-file prosecutor drafted the Biden indictment and sent it up the chain of command for approval, the question would have been whether there were aggravating factors to justify the case.
[...]
The inference that Weiss caved to pressure from congressional Republicans in charging the president’s son is hard to avoid. But it’s not necessary to unequivocally reach that conclusion to find basic fault with the case.
Hunter Biden was singled out for harsher treatment than any other comparable defendant would have been in the normal run of federal prosecutions. That’s injustice enough.
[...]
Weiss soon brought the indictment on which Biden was just convicted. He faces 15 to 21 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, though it’s likely that the court will impose a lighter sentence.
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