A Delaware court has dismissed President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s bid to dismiss three federal gun charges, all but assuring that a trial will take place this summer.
In December, Hunter Biden’s attorneys filed a flurry of challenges to an indictment brought by special counsel David Weiss, questioning Weiss’ power to pursue charges and saying the indictment was the result of a selective and malicious prosecution.
Defense attorneys also claimed that an immunity provision tied to Hunter Biden’s ill-fated plea agreement was still in effect.
Prosecutors claim Hunter Biden lied on a federal document about his drug use when he purchased a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver in 2018, despite later admitting in his memoir, “Beautiful Things,” that he was hooked to drugs at the time. According to his attorneys, he had the pistol for eleven days but never shot it.
In January, Weiss’ office pushed back against Hunter Biden’s efforts to dismiss the lawsuit, calling his different arguments “absurd,” “stunningly weak and wholly unsupported by facts and law,” and “a fiction designed for a Hollywood script.”
On Friday, Judge Maryellen Noreika sided with prosecutors, guaranteeing that the case will proceed to trial, which is provisionally set to begin in early June.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys had based their hopes for dismissal on the premise that an immunity provision in their plea deal, which ultimately failed, was ratified when both parties signed it. However, Weiss’ office maintained that the contract required clearance from a probation officer, who never signed it.
On Friday, Noreika stated that “the relevant language [in the agreement] unambiguously requires probation to approve the agreement.”
Hunter Biden also said that Weiss “buckled” under political pressure from Republicans and former President Trump. But Noreika delivered a scathing criticism.
“At best, [Hunter Biden] has generically alleged that individuals from the prior administration were or are targeting him (or his father) and therefore his prosecution here must be vindictive,” Noreika said in a statement. “The problem with this argument is that the charging decision at issue was made during this administration — by Special Counsel Weiss — at a time when the head of the Executive Branch prosecuting Defendant is Defendant’s father.”
“Defendant’s claim is effectively that his own father targeted him for being his son, a claim that is nonsensical under the facts here,” he said.
The ruling is another legal loss for Hunter Biden, who had identical arguments to a nine-count indictment on tax allegations denied earlier this month by a California federal judge. That lawsuit is anticipated to go to trial shortly after the Delaware gun case.