Bloomberg BusinessweekHunter Biden was found guilty of gun charges by a federal court jury in Delaware, becoming the first child of a sitting US president to be convicted of crimes. Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney and Jess Menton bring you instant reaction from our Bloomberg News team.
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Hunter Biden has been convicted of gun charges by a jury in the Delaware trial. The jury took three hours to reach the verdict against the President's son, Junius. Now is June Grasso, Bloomberg's legal analyst, June, what do you make of this ruling today?
Well, I'm surprised he came in so fast, But there was a lot of evidence that the prosecution presented that Hunter Biden was addicted to drugs around the time at least that he filled out that form. The only hope I think that the defense had was jury nullification, the jury saying that, you know, there are a lot of jurors about four I think it is, who have family members who are addicted, and they heard for a week about Hunter Biden's you know, descent into addiction and how it took him and members of some of the members of his family down. So, if those jurors had felt some sympathy for Hunter Biden and decided that they didn't want to follow the strict instructions, the defense had given them some outs to say that he didn't knowingly check the box that said I'm not a drug addict. I'm not addicted to drugs. I'm not using drugs. And there were some technical arguments they could have, you know, clung to, but the prosecution just presented a mountain of evidence, including hunter Biden's own words in his memoir, including testimony from his ex wife and ex lovers. And it turned out that the daughter's testimony, which the defense presented, sort of backfired on them because on cross examination they presented her with some text messages that showed that around the time that the gun was purchased, Hunter Biden was not available. He wanted to get his car at two am. It was very suspicious sounding, sort of sounding like what a drug addict would do. So I think, you know, the prosecution had a mountain of evidence. What are next steps here? I guess sentencing, sentencing, There'll be a probation report, sentencing. I mean, it's it's anyone's guess with the sentencing, because I don't think, you know, he could get I believe it's twenty five years, but I don't, you know, think the judge would give him that. I mean, this is a crime where no one was injured at all. There's no victim in this crime. He's the only victim really of his drug addiction, and then there'll be a pellet issues. Then there are some very strong appellate issues because the Fifth Circuit, which is a conservative circuit, since the Supreme Court's landmark decision in the New York gun case, has said that this law is unconstitutional. The law that makes it that doesn't allow someone who is a felon or you know, addicted to drugs to have a weapon. So there's that.
Do we know what the timetable is for sentencing?
No, the judge will announce the sentencing timetable. It depends. I don't know about Delaware, I mean New York. It's usually within a month or so.
But do we know when the judge would announce that or is that to be determined at this point?
The judge usually when he takes the or she this case takes the jury vertic will announce the sentencing date. But again, you know, I'm not sure what's going to happen in this case. Why was this case braud who brought this case? Well, that is a big question.
Or two.
I mean, this is a this is a special council, And what happened was he was investigating this for quite some time they had reached a deal. Hunter Biden and the Special UH Counsel's office weiss they'd reached a deal in which he wouldn't serve any jail time and he would also settle the California tax case. When it came to this judge, they went to court. They expected the deal to you know, be announced and informalized, and the judge found some problems with the way the deal was structured, and it just blew up there in the courtroom. The judge said that, you know, there's something wrong, and then the defense said, well, we're not going to plead guilty if this, that, and the other. It just blew up, and so at that point they decided to go to trial. But it's all about a special counsel who has been appointed to oversee the Hunter Biden cases. And I think we've seen that special counsel often feel that if they don't bring cases, if they don't win cases, then what are they there for.
Do you expect that the Biden administration would make any sort of comment on this.
The President has already said that he will not He could pardon his son, but he has said that he will not pardon his son. That he'll accept the jury's verdict. So I don't know if you're gonna hear anything more than that. The first lady has been at the trial almost every day. She flew to France to be with her husband and then she came back, and so they've had an incredibly large family gatherings there and apparently, you know, crowding the courtroom to the point where the Secret Service didn't know where to sit. So and they've had prayers, you know, sort of prayer gather rings in the mornings.
All right, Joe, to stay right there. For political reaction, we can bring in Jeannie Shane Zeno, Bloomer Politics contributor and senior democracy fellow with the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Jennie, thanks so much for joining us here. What's the political repercussions here for President Biden.
Well, you know, the easy answer is, we really don't know, because this is the first time we have had a president's child who, while they are sitting as president, has faced criminal charges and of course now been found guilty.
So that is one thing. But we have seen some polling on this.
For instance, Emerson did a poll and they found similar to the reaction to Trump's conviction that about six or seven out of ten American voters said it wouldn't impact their vote whatsoever. But that left about a quarter of Americans saying it might impact them. And in this case, about eleven percent of those were Democrats. And in an election this tight, if you see drop off of eleven percent, potentially that can have an impact. So there is an electoral impact that we're going to see how that sort of comes out in the wash by the time we get to November. The other part of this, though, is, as June knows, Hunter Biden is facing other charges this fall, potentially before the election in California that could have an impact. And of course there's a very personal impact on the President and the first Lady. I think we undercount how much of a toll this takes on a father or a mother, a parent in this case, and how that can impact a candidate running for office on top of trying to serve as president of the United States. So all of those are real repercussions.
Here all right.
Also on right now, I want to bring in Joe Matthew, co host a Balance of Power from Washington, DC. Joe, what's the feeling within DC about this hold, the legal issues facing the president's son here and how they're being pursued. What's the feeling in Washington.
Well, it depends who you ask, just like anything else. If you talk to the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, the chair of the Oversight Committee, James Comer, they will tell you this is part of the narrative that brings you to understand the what they like to refer to as the Biden crime family. But every hearing that's been held and every attempt to get the president involved here has so far fallen flat by this Republican conference, And so you know, people are kind of watching this from the sidelines. If you ask Democrats, they're outraged, and they'll say Donald Trump complains about the weaponization of government and the judicial system, and this is it on full display. How many people have been tried and convicted on these crimes before. But look, you know, it's just another brick in the wall. To be honest with you here, it kind of depends on what you are looking at, who you support, and what the roar shack test is here. If you were already upset with Joe Biden, then this helps your argument. And if you see a double standard with Donald Trump, that's another question here. We have to remind ourselves that Hunter Biden is not running for president.
I want to bring June Grasso back into this conversation. What other potential legal issues might Hunter be facing if at all.
Well, he's facing a trial in California over his taxes and what he filed on his taxes. That's considered a much more substantial case than this one was, because that's a case that has been brought before this case over the gun charges. It's very rare. No one I've talked to knows anyone who's been tried or has represented anyone who's been tried on charges like this where you were a drug addict, I would say allegedly, But now I guess the jury confirmed that you were a drug addict. You lied on the form and bought a gun, but there was no crime associated with that gun. The gun stayed locked away. So it's unusual to bring a federal case over something like that. Normally that would be something to be pleted out and which, as I explained before, what they tried to plead it out here. So and he's facing you know, it's three felonies here, so and they're all related to this one transaction checking this box. It's very unusual to have even people, even some Republicans, have come out and said that this is a really unusual case.
Jennie, how do you think the Biden administration and the Biden campaign will in fact address this issue going forward during the campaign.
I think they will continue to say that this is a very personal and tough issue for the president. He loves his son, but he has let the Justice Department do its work, obviously unimpeded by the president. And this is further proof of the fact that when Donald Trump says there is a political persecution of him, that is not the case. Because here you have the president's owned DOJ prosecuting his son, and now that jury finding him guilty, facing potent twenty five years in jail. All of that's unlikely obviously, So I think they're going to just make that case, and the President has promised not to do what he could do, which is pardon his son, although I believe that that will be increasingly tough for the President as he faces sort of a choice nobody wants between their role as a parent and their job as leader of the free world. This is very, very tough for him.
Joe Matthew, Let's bring you back into this conversation because when you have an instance here with what's happening with President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden here facing this and then Juxta positioned that against what Trump when he was just found guilty on all thirty four counts of falcifying those business records, At what point, Because you've covered so many different election cycles, have you seen a dynamic something like this when you have two different nominees facing different issues such as the ease that would be never right.
I figured we are repeatedly and uncharted waters here, and I would look back to what June was pointing to.
There's going to be another trial.
This is going to be something that involves a subject matter when it comes to taxes that will resonate with people. He's accused of not paying a million dollars in taxes. It's going to bring back to the Barismas story, the so called, like I said, Biden crime family that Marjorie Taylor Green and others who tried to impeach the president like to talk about. And it's going to happen much closer to the election day itself. This is going to be something that likely takes place in the fall. June can probably speak to any efforts to delay that trial, But look, people have short memories. Are they going to be talking about this when we're in the middle of that? So I would point you to the fall, and I would also remind you that we don't have a sentencing date yet, and it's going to be interesting to see the way that lands. Whether this is incarceratory or if he faces a fine. That's still a question of course for Donald Trump as well.
So June, I mean, I know we're kind of an uncharted territory here as it relates to this type of crime followed through to conviction. Are sentencing guidelines any useful to observers or how do we think about a potential sentence here?
Well?
As Genie said, twenty five years is a possible sentence, but I can't imagine that the judge would sentenced him to that. There's going to be a pre sentence report. Of course. The pre sentence report will show that he's still facing another trial, and that part of the pre sentence report is whether you're addicted to drugs or you have any physical limitations. So it's hard for me to say to guess what the what the judge will do here. I mean, she knows all the facts in the case. She knows that there was a deal that collapsed, and so you know, it's just hard to just say, I don't know.
What this judge will do Genie when it comes to because you had mentioned pulling before, obviously there's been a number of election cycles in the last decade where the pulling has been quite off and also tends to be delayed in some ways. How does this potentially complicate some things in your mind.
Yeah, it's a great question, because this is very complicated. You're asking people what they may do in November if a hypothetical child of a president gets convicted, which has now happened in the last few minutes. So it's it's hard to know if people will, to Joe's point, remember all of this come November, and it will truly impact what they do in the polls. Certainly the Biden team is hoping it does not, but the fact that he is coming up with his other trial, which is obviously much more damaging if it goes forward in California would potentially make the numbers we're seeing worse. But what we've seen so far is Emerson saying about eleven percent of Democrats say they will not vote for Joe Biden as a result of this. So I don't know if we could take that to the polls as they will, but you know, that's what the numbers are saying. And you know, one interesting thing to note is that Donald Trump, he has not been talking about this as a you might expect, like as he would make maybe the Barisma case or the tax case. He's been talking about it sort of empathetically, talking about his brother who was an alcoholic and died. I suspect when we get to the next trial, the rhetoric from Trump and the right will be much more difficult and tough on Joe Biden and much more reminiscent of what they were saying and using Hunter Biden as a lightning rod, but on this because it involves addiction, they haven't been quite.
As tough Joe.
Is this the new normal in Washington, DC? Where past presidents relatives of current presidents are being sued and taken a court?
And is this the new normal?
It feels like it.
I thought impeachment was the new normal, but I guess we're just doing this in criminal court now. I think you just have to think about it, though, and say, like, which battle are we talking about? We keep focusing on November here for good reason. We're in the throes of an historic election cycle. But let's talk about the way the campaigns might hear who won the day. Donald Trump probably did, because otherwise we'd be talking about his first meeting ever with a.
Pro bation officer yesterday. He had to sit for that virtual.
Interview for half an hour, and it will not really be talked about now because of Joe Biden's son. But when you talk about who's going to win the month or the season, we have to factor in a lot of other things here, including Donald Trump's own sentencing, the debate that's coming up just a couple of weeks away, never mind the conventions that are going to follow it. So we do want to take it one step at a time here, and you could probably say pretty easily that this is a win for Trump. Be curious to see what he says. To Genie's point, He's been a little bit careful with this one because of the personal nature of this trial and that will look a lot different in the next one.
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