On Tuesday, Hunter Biden will stand in a Delaware courtroom and plead not guilty to three felony charges levied against him for lying about his drug use to buy a gun in 2018. The looming trial, being prosecuted by Special Counsel David Weiss, coincides with House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden fils’s father, which will soon include public testimony from the first son’s former business partner. 

Mr. Biden’s appearance before a federal magistrate judge, Christopher Burke, will kick off the first criminal trial of a sitting president’s child in American history. Mr. Biden was indicted by a grand jury in September and now faces three felony charges for lying on a federal form about his crack cocaine addiction in order to purchase a Colt Cobra .30 Special, which he owned for 12 days until his girlfriend at the time, his brother’s widow, Hallie Biden, found it in his truck and threw it out in a trash bin outside a high-end grocery store at Wilmington, Delaware. 

The Sun spoke with a criminal defense attorney who recently represented a client charged with lying on the ATF Form 4473 in order to purchase a firearm — the same charge Mr. Biden is now facing. The attorney was granted anonymity to offer his frank thoughts on Mr. Biden’s case. 

The defense attorney tells the Sun that Mr. Biden’s sentencing — should he be found guilty — will depend heavily on the first son’s lack of a criminal record and whether the presiding judge believes Mr. Biden is likely to violate the statute again. The statutory maximum for lying to the ATF on Form 4473 is 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. 

“Every day in jail is not good,” the attorney says, but speculates that given that Mr. Biden has no previous felony criminal convictions, it is unlikely he would face substantial prison time, if any. He says that “probation” could be “in the cards” for Mr. Biden, allowing him to return home to California and avoid prison or serious financial penalties. 

The attorney also says that if he were Mr. Biden’s lawyer, he would argue that the underlying statute that was used to charge Mr. Biden is itself unconstitutional, given a recent landmark decision from the Supreme Court. 

The landmark case in question, New York State Pistol and Rifle Association v. Bruen, held that all firearms regulations must be “consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding.” The author of the opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, has been criticized by lower court judges for issuing a vague test for understanding such regulations. One federal judge, Carlton Reeves, said during a hearing that challenged a federal firearm restriction that he may even have to appoint a historian in order to help him understand the history of such regulations. 

The defense attorney says that Mr. Biden’s legal team should argue that the ATF should not be allowed to ask about one’s drug or alcohol abuse when purchasing a firearm, as asking for such information is not “consistent” with the history of firearms regulations here in America. “If I was his lawyer, we’d be fighting on that front for sure,” the attorney said. Ironically, the law that criminalizes lying to the ATF was written by the elder Mr. Biden while he was a member of the Senate — the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. 

One conservative columnist and fierce gun rights advocate, Cameron Smith, is already arguing that his fellow Republicans can either see Mr. Biden put behind bars or they can advocate for an originalist’s understanding of the Second Amendment. 

“Republicans should come to the defense of Hunter Biden,” Mr. Smith wrote in the Tennessean on September 26. “When it comes to the gun charge against him, Republicans must decide if they’re more interested in prosecuting Biden than protecting the Second Amendment” under the new standard set forth in Bruen. 

All of this comes as the younger Mr. Biden sits at the center of the impeachment inquiry that has been launched against the president. 

In the coming weeks, the House Oversight Committee will hear testimony from the first son’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski. According to Time magazine, the committee chairman, Congressman James Comer, and Mr. Bobulinski are finalizing details about his appearance as a fact witness before the end of October. 

Of all of the younger Mr. Biden’s past business partners, Mr. Bobulinski has been most vocal that the president is lying when he says he was not involved in his son’s business affairs. In fact, Mr. Bobulinski claims he met with the elder Mr. Biden regarding a deal with Communist China involving Mr. Biden fils.

Mr. Comer may still be smarting from the volleys of criticism he received about the first impeachment hearing. At that hearing, the committee heard testimony from legal, financial, and tax experts — none of whom had direct information about the Biden family’s alleged crimes but gave their insights into what bribery and tax avoidance charges could look like. 

After one of the witnesses, Jonathan Turley, said he did not, as of yet, see a legal justification for impeachment, Mr. Comer was heavily criticized from the right as well as the left, with one Republican telling Politico the hearing was “an unmitigated disaster.”

On Saturday, Politico reported that “some Republicans” are pushing to have oversight of the impeachment hearings taken away from Mr. Comer and given to the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Congressman Jim Jordan. A spokesman for the Oversight Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

_______________________

Correction: Hunter Biden will appear on Tuesday before a federal magistrate judge, Christopher Burke. An earlier version misstated the name of the judge.