US President Joe Biden's son Hunter indicted on gun charges

Hunter Biden, the son of US Vice President Joe Biden, was arrested Thursday for unlawfully purchasing a pistol while under the influence of narcotics, casting a new cloud over his father’s reelection campaign next year.

Hunter Biden, 53, was charged with two counts of making false statements on paperwork necessary for a 2018 gun purchase, claiming that he was not unlawfully utilising narcotics at the time.

A third accusation stated that he illegally had the pistol for 11 days in October of that year based on false assertions.

If convicted on all three felony counts, Biden could face up to 25 years in prison, but they are rarely penalised by jail time in practice.

In attesting that he was not an unlawful user of drugs when he bought the Colt Cobra revolver, Biden “knew that statement was false,” the Justice Department said.

The charge comes only two days after Republicans in Congress launched an impeachment investigation into Democrat Joe Biden, saying that while vice president, he profited financially from his son’s international business transactions.

Hunter Biden’s legal problems have made him a target for political opponents of his father, who is running for re-election to a second term in the White House.

Hunter is a Yale-educated lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist, but his life has been tainted by alcoholism and crack addiction.

Republicans have accused Biden’s Justice Department of sheltering his son and Weiss, a Republican appointment, of being too soft on Hunter without providing any proof.

Representative James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky who will be leading the impeachment inquiry, welcomed the filing of the gun charges, calling it a “very small start.”

“Mountains of evidence reveals that Hunter Biden likely committed several felonies and Americans expect the Justice Department to apply the law equally,” Comer said.

Twice-impeached former president Donald Trump reacted on his Truth Social platform.

“This, the gun charge, is the only crime that Hunter Biden committed that does not implicate Crooked Joe Biden,” he said.

Plea deal collapsed

But a leading Democrat, Keisha Lance Bottoms, ex-mayor of Atlanta and a former senior adviser to Joe Biden, questioned why Hunter had been charged.

“Can anyone tell me how many people have been federally indicted for purchasing a gun while dealing with substance abuse issues?” Bottoms said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“I don’t know the answer, but in my over 29 years as an attorney, I have never heard of it.”

The gun charges were filed by Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, who has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018 over various allegations, mostly related to his overseas business deals.

Two months ago a plea deal between Biden and Weiss, covering the gun charge as well as alleged tax violations, went sour.

Biden agreed to plead guilty in federal court in Delaware to two minor tax charges. In exchange, he was offered probation, as he had already paid what he owed the government along with penalties.

Weiss agreed to suspend the felony gun charge if Biden completed “pretrial diversion,” which often involves counselling or rehabilitation.

But in a dramatic July 26 hearing, the deal collapsed over whether Biden would have been immune from any other charges also investigated by Weiss, including possible crimes related to his business dealings in Ukraine, China and elsewhere.

The judge mentioned the possibility that Biden could be charged as having acted as a lobbyist for foreign governments without registering with the Justice Department.

Three weeks later, after the deal collapsed, Weiss dropped the tax charges and said an indictment on the gun charge would come by the end of September.

As the 2024 election race swings into gear, Republicans in the House of Representatives on Tuesday formally opened an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

They alleged, without offering hard evidence, that while vice president in 2015-2016, Biden intervened to protect an allegedly corrupt Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, where Hunter Biden sat on the board.

Republicans allege Joe Biden and his family reaped large sums for helping Burisma.