Hunter Biden may stand trial in Delaware on federal gun charges as early as June, during his father’s reelection campaign.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika set the preliminary date during a brief teleconference session Wednesday, but she is still considering various defense arguments to dismiss the case against the president’s son, which may delay any future trial, the AP reported.
The trial is scheduled to begin June 3 and may last up to nine days. A separate trial on tax allegations against him in California is now scheduled to begin later this month.
Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, has pleaded not guilty to lying about his drug usage on a document to purchase a rifle in October 2018 and keeping it for roughly 11 days. He admitted to using crack cocaine during that time, but his lawyers claim he did not breach the law, and a nonviolent, first-time offender would not have been prosecuted.
He was indicted after a plea arrangement that would have ended the issue without the spectacle of a trial fell apart in July 2023 when a judge who was meant to accept it instead voiced a number of concerns.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys have subsequently tried to have the case dismissed, claiming that prosecutors caved to political pressure after the accord was publicly criticized as a “sweetheart deal” by Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.
They also claim that the original deal’s immunity terms still apply, a point that defense attorney Abbe Lowell emphasized with the judge Wednesday.
Noreika stated that she had not yet decided how she would handle the case’s four current requests to dismiss, but she wanted to make sure that time for any trial was available on her schedule.
Prosecutors have stated that there is no indication that the case is politically motivated, that the evidence against him is “overwhelming,” and that the immunity bargain collapsed along with the rest of the plea agreement.
Hunter Biden has also pled not guilty to unrelated tax charges in Los Angeles, which include a four-year plot to dodge paying $1.4 million in taxes while living a lavish lifestyle.
His father Joe Biden was found in a Special Counsel’s report to have violated multiple federal laws against mishandling classified documents, repeatedly misled federal investigators, obstructed justice by lying about the security of these documents, and divulged state secrets, but remains uncharged because prosecutors did not believe that a jury would convict him because he is a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
