Hunter Biden gun case sentencing after election

Hunter Biden will be sentenced in his criminal gun case in Delaware on Nov. 13, eight days after the 2024 presidential election, a federal judge said Friday.

Hunter Biden, the sole surviving son of President Joe Biden, was convicted in June by a jury in U.S. District Court in Wilmington of three criminal counts related to his purchase and possession of a revolver while being an illegal drug user.

The 54-year-old is the first child of a sitting U.S. president ever to be convicted of crimes.

Hunter Biden faces a maximum possible sentence of 25 years in prison, but is likely to receive a much lighter punishment from Judge Maryellen Noreika due to federal sentencing guidelines.

Hunter Biden faces another criminal trial in September in Los Angeles federal court. He is charged there with nine counts stemming from his alleged failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over several years.

His lawyers on July 18 asked the judges in both the Delaware and LA cases to dismiss the charges.

Hunter Biden’s attorneys in their motions cited a new opinion by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas questioning whether the Department of Justice has the authority to appoint special counsels as prosecutors, and the related dismissal of the criminal classified documents case against former President Donald Trump in Florida federal court.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is head of the DOJ, in August 2023 appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss as special counsel to head investigations of Hunter Biden and prosecute him if needed.

Garland likewise had appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate Trump for his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, and his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to President Biden.

Smith obtained grand jury indictments in both cases against Trump, and is appealing the decision last month by a Florida federal judge to toss the classified documents case. That judge, Aileen Cannon, had found that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional, and in her ruling cited Thomas’ recent opinion.

Hunter Biden’s legal troubles and salacious past drew significant attention as his father ran for reelection against Trump, who appointed Noreika and Cannon to their judicial seats.

President Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, undercutting his son’s usefulness to Republicans as a political weapon.

The president endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be his replacement against Trump on the same day he quit the election contest.

On Friday, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Harris had won enough delegate votes to secure the party’s nomination, although the results are not yet official. The official announcement of the results is scheduled for Monday.

Trump in the spring became the first former president to be convicted of a crime. He is awaiting sentencing in that case, where a New York state court jury found him guilty of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

In addition to the criminal election interference case in Washington, D.C., Trump is separately charged in Atlanta state court with crimes related to his bid to reverse his loss to President Biden in Georgia in the 2020 election.