Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial set for June 3: President’s son faces 25-year prison term on charges he bought a revolver while on drugs

A federal judge ruled that Hunter Biden will be tried June 3 in Delaware on federal weapons charges.

The president’s son, 54, has pleaded not guilty to three charges related to lying about his drug use when purchasing a gun in 2018. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted after the trial, which carries up to nine years can last. to dawn.

His June 3 gun trial comes immediately before a separate trial in a case brought by special counsel David Weiss over nine tax assessments assessed before June 20 in California.

Hunter tried to avoid the spectacle of a full trial by entering into what Republicans called a “sweetheart” plea deal with DOJ. But last summer it fell apart in spectacular fashion and he now faces the two jury trials.

It’s sure to cause a headache for his father Joe, who just clinched the Democratic nomination for president last night as he enters the 2024 campaign.

Last month, Weiss published photos of Hunter’s iPhone and hard drive that prosecutors said were evidence he was using cocaine when he bought a gun.

But Hunter’s legal team says DOJ mistook sawdust for cocaine during their investigation.

Hunter’s lawyers say the image in question was actually sent to his psychiatrist by someone else as a joke.

“The plaintiff is flat out wrong – both in saying that Mr. Biden ‘took’ this photo and in claiming that it contains ‘cocaine,'” Biden’s lawyers said.

“Multiple sources have pointed out, and a review of the discovery confirms that this is actually a photo of sawdust from an expert carpenter and that it was sent to Mr. Biden, not the other way around.”

“More specifically, the discovery identifies this as a photo of a photo taken in the office of Mr. Biden’s then-psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow,” Hunter’s attorneys said.

According to the court documents, Dr. Ablow initially took the image from a patient, who was a master carpenter, and later texted it to Hunter.

In his text message to Hunter, the doctor wrote, “This one in my office consists of lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was addicted to coke.”

“The message accompanying that photo was intended to convey that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction,” Hunter’s lawyers wrote.

They continued, “Confusing sawdust with cocaine sounds more like a storyline from one of the Police Academy comedies of the 1980s than what you might expect in a high-profile prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Abbe Lowell, Hunter’s attorney, said the sawdust error “reinforces why Mr. Biden and the court could not accept what the prosecutor said ‘at face value.’

Weiss has accused Hunter Biden of crimes including lying about his drug use when he bought a gun in 2018. The president’s son has pleaded not guilty.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers accused the accuser of being “reckless” by making a “hyperbolic and sensational” claim regarding the sawdust image.

They said it would “disadvantage Mr. Biden in the public eye.”

The row over the photo arose when Hunter’s attorneys filed a 22-page document regarding the sharing of evidence between the prosecution and defense.