Raw: [
- Hunter Biden seeks dismissal of Delaware gun charges brought by Weiss – The Washington Post The Washington Post
- Hunter Biden files motion to dismiss indictment on gun charges CBS News
- Hunter Biden asks judge to toss out gun charges POLITICO
] {Article Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/11/hunter-biden-motion-dismiss-david-weiss/}
Accessibility statementSkip to main contentDemocracy Dies in DarknessSign inThe Washington PostDemocracy Dies in DarknessNational SecurityForeign Policy Intelligence Justice Military National SecurityForeign Policy Intelligence Justice Military Hunter Biden’s lawyers ask for gun charges to be dismissedBy Perry Stein and Devlin BarrettUpdated December 11, 2023 at 5:49 p.m. EST|Published December 11, 2023 at 4:28 p.m. ESTPresident Biden’s son Hunter Biden departs a court appearance in Wilmington, Del., in July (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)Listen5 minShareComment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSaveHunter Biden’s legal team on Monday asked a Delaware judge to dismiss the federal gun charges filed against him, arguing that prosecutors violated key promises they made as part of a previous agreement that would have allowed Biden to avoid felony charges.Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.ArrowRightBiden’s team insisted in a filing Monday that the agreement is in effect. The government disagrees.The dismissal request is the latest chapter in the long-running investigation into the president’s son, which has resulted in high-profile court hearings, massive political interest among Republican politicians — and two federal indictments against the younger Biden.The indictments — on gun charges in Delaware and tax charges in California — set up the extraordinary possibility that Biden could go on trial twice next year while his father runs for reelection.AdvertisementRepublicans in Congress have latched onto the Hunter Biden investigation, trying to link the younger Biden’s financial and legal woes to alleged corruption by the president. They have not produced any direct evidence to suggest President Biden is connected to any allegations around his son.Republicans also have accused the Justice Department of going too soft on Hunter Biden and have tried to use this investigation as evidence that federal prosecutors are unfairly targeting former president Donald Trump, who faces two federal indictments. Lawyers for Biden have, in turn, said that the two indictments filed against their client are the result of the Justice Department responding to political pressure.Biden was charged in September with making false statements in filling out the paperwork to purchase a gun on Oct. 12, 2018. He claimed to not be addicted to or using illegal drugs, the September indictment says, “when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious.” Prosecutors allege that Biden illegally possessed the gun for 11 days after he purchased it.AdvertisementMonths before the indictment, Biden struck a deal with federal prosecutors in which he would plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax violations and admit to the facts of the gun case, without actually being charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, which is a felony.Share this articleShareAs part of the deal, he said he would enter a diversion agreement, something often used among defendants with substance-abuse issues. Biden agreed to certain conditions, including not purchasing a firearm and not using drugs, to avoid the gun charge.But the deal fell apart in a Delaware courthouse in July when a judge questioned the constitutionality of the agreement, and lawyers clashed over whether it provided Biden immunity from certain additional potential charges.The filings say that Biden’s team believes that the diversion agreement should remain intact — even if the plea deal on the tax charges does not. But while the gun and tax cases are separate, the agreements were structured in a complicated and unusual way that partially linked them together.Advertisement“Mr. Biden, one party, struck a deal with the prosecution, the other party, through the Diversion Agreement,” the Monday filing reads. “As part of that Agreement, he sacrificed valuable rights in exchange for the prosecution’s agreement not to prosecute the very sort of Indictment that it has brought here.Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell also filed a motion Monday to dismiss the gun case on the grounds that the prosecutor who brought them, David Weiss, was not properly appointed as a special counsel. Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, was given special counsel status in August, after the collapse of the plea deal. As special counsel, he has more power to bring charges outside his home district.Lowell wrote that by appointing a currently serving U.S. attorney as special counsel, Attorney General Merrick Garland violated Justice Department regulations. However, such appointments have happened before, drawing on other regulations that authorize the attorney general to give special authorities to Justice Department employees. During the Trump administration, for example, Attorney General William P. Barr appointed the then-U.S. attorney for Connecticut, John Durham, to serve as a special counsel.AdvertisementLowell said in a written statement that the charges against Biden “are unprecedented, unconstitutional and violate the agreement the U.S. Attorney made with Mr. Biden and DOJ’s own regulations.“The only relevant changes in the months since this U.S. Attorney decided against pursuing these exact charges against Mr. Biden have been court rulings undermining the constitutionality of the law at issue here and relentless partisan attacks by former President Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress. This is not how an independent investigation is supposed to work, and these charges should be dismissed,” Lowell said.A spokesman for Weiss declined to comment.Biden’s legal team submitted multiple legal filings Monday calling for the case to be dismissed. In one of them, attorney Chris Clark recounted his communication earlier this year with federal prosecutors, attempting to show that the two indictments include far more serious charges than prosecutors initially told him they intended to file.Clark wrote that prosecutors negotiated with the Biden team to end the case without criminal charges, and that he thought he was close to reaching an agreement with prosecutors in which a statement of facts about the case would have been made public, but Biden would not have had to plead guilty to anything.Share CommentsLoading…TOP STORIESTravelLocal guides, travel tips and the latest industry newsDisney World abruptly starts banning third-party tour guidesPerspective|Build your hotel shampoo collection for a lifetime of free hair care Advice|9 ways to prepare for a holiday travel meltdown, from easy to extremeRefreshTry a different topicSign in or create a free account to save your preferenceswashingtonpost.com © 1996-2023 The Washington Postwashingtonpost.com © 1996-2023 The Washington Post