Judge Who Rejected Hunter Biden’s ‘Sweetheart’ Plea Deal Denies All of First Son’s Motions To Dismiss, Setting Up Summer Trial

Hunter Biden will go to trial for three charges related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018 after the presiding judge denied all of his motions to dismiss the case. The trial will occur just days after the first son sits for his tax evasion trial. Judge Maryellen Noreika of the federal district court in Delaware ruled on Friday that the first son’s arguments for dismissal lacked merit, setting up a trial that will begin on June 20. Mr. Biden’s legal team tried a similar strategy in his federal prosecution in California and was unsuccessful there as well. Mr. Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, filed several motions to dismiss in recent months, arguing that the first son is the victim of a “vindictive” prosecution and that congressional Republicans influenced Special Counsel David Weiss’s decision to file the charges against Mr. Biden in 2023. Mr. Lowell also argued that Mr. Weiss was illegally appointed by Attorney General Garland, and that the first son’s plea agreement — which Judge Noreika herself rejected last summer — was actually still in effect. “Defendant argues that his felony firearm possession charge and the two related false-statement charges are selective and vindictive and also that they violate the separation of powers, requiring their dismissal,” Judge Noreika writes in her opinion. Mr. Biden says that Mr. Weiss abandoned the plea agreement amid a congressional investigation into his foreign business dealings, which is evidence of the special counsel being pressured by the GOP. Judge Noreika says that the first son claims he is the member of a “protected class,” which is “family members of politically-important persons.” The jurist was unconvinced. “This Court has been unable to find any instance where a defendant’s familial relationship to a politically-important person on its own gave rise to a claim of selective prosecution,” she writes. “Even if that were a cognizable claim, however, Defendant has failed to come forward with ‘clear evidence’ that similarly situated individuals have not been prosecuted for comparable firearm-related conduct.”Mr. Biden previously compared himself to the murdered princes and princesses of Europe, who were killed only because of who their parents were. “To be sure, children of politically powerful individuals enjoy great privilege, but they often become the targets of animus for that very reason,” Mr. Lowell writes in one court filing. “History is replete with children of political figures being abducted and assassinated literally (e.g., murder of Romanov children by Russian revolutionaries) or figuratively (e.g., Odysseus murdering the son of Crown Prince Hector when sacking Troy). Regrettably, political attacks on the children of politicians to harm or influence their parents are not uncommon in America either.”Mr. Lowell argued that the plea agreement Mr. Biden reached with Mr. Weiss last year was actually still in effect. At a hearing before Judge Noreika in July 2023, prosecutors and the defense were not able to answer the question of whether or not the first son was immune from all future criminal charges. When Judge Noreika ordered both sides to come to an agreement in private, they were unable to do so, leading the jurist to quash the plea deal. “Having received contradictory sworn statements about Defendant’s reliance on immunity, the Court proceeded to inquire about the scope of any immunity. At this point, it became apparent that the parties had different views as to the scope of the immunity provision in the Diversion Agreement,” she writes in her opinion. Judge Noreika says that the agreement “never went into effect” because the prosecution withdrew the contract, which means it cannot currently be enforceable. The Sun previously reported that Judge Noreika had tentatively scheduled the gun trial for June — a critical time that will see the Biden campaign ramp up operations in key battleground states ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which begins less than two months later. If convicted, the first son faces up to ten years in prison.

Judge Who Rejected Hunter Biden’s ‘Sweetheart’ Plea Deal Denies All of First Son’s Motions To Dismiss, Setting Up Summer Trial

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