Really?
Should people in Congress who have committed crimes be held to a higher standard? Should a president who commits crimes be held to a higher standard? Should police who commit crimes be held to a higher standard?
I have an idea. Let’s hold them all to the same standard as everyone else, and let the chips fall where they may.
It isn’t strictly possible. As to how hard we should try to achieve it, I’m unsure.
Shouldn’t IRS tax examiners be held to a higher standard when they do their own taxes?
The other issue is that even if Hunter should be held to the same standard, what he is alleged to have done seems unique.
I know that Republican politicians are pushing for Hunter to be punished to avenge Trump’s legal peril. This is wrong. It also is inevitable. If you look at other countries where national leaders have gone to prison, there is heightened legal scrutiny, of leading politicians, afterwards. (I posted some links on this last year.) It would be nice if family members weren’t included, but I doubt it can be prevented. The way to minimize it is – be careful not to break the law! Just as Black parents unfortunately have to have “The Talk” with their children, the same now applies to Democratic politicians.
See:
Hunter Biden Should Take a Plea Deal. Quickly.
Except that, if he is successful, people will die due to addicts having more guns.
I do not like plea deals. But if guilty, admitting it, and accepting jail time, is one way to repent. And it would demonstrate that the legal system is not biased against Republicans.
This is why I totally support only holding Black children to a 3/5ths standard.
Well, I agree to that, and in fact the gun was taken away within days.
The 4473 isnt really a “permit.”.
Could be,
’
But we also have a right against self incrimination, and almost no one is prosecuted for this. In fact, there was a fair and viable Plea deal working until Republicans started screaming about a fix.
So, HB prosecution really is politically motivated. He also “forgot” to pay taxes- but then paid them all off with interest and penalties. If you are accused of Tax Fraud, but you agree that you did it, and pay it off- you just dont go to prison for that (unless you led others into a tax protesting scheme). The deal was fair.
If others are also prosecuted similarly.
How could the Judge have allowed that? There is no chain of evidence, and it was tampered with.
And perhaps at that time he wasnt.
This is correct.
Sure. But he had just come out of rehab, and people not only lie, but get dates etc mixed up all the time in autobiographies.
There are several stories about what happened to the pea deal-
Lowell said on Face the Nation that there were only three explanations for the purported turnabout. Number one is essentially incompetence: Prosecutors didn’t understand the implications of what they were promising. Number two is malfeasance: Prosecutors knew all along they were offering something more limited, but misled Hunter’s attorneys about what they meant. Number three is flip-flopping: Prosecutors initially made the broad promise, but reneged after political backlash from Republicans.
If the ATF wanted to, they could bust tens of thousands of people in Pot legal states. Maybe hundreds of thousands. Get ahold of sales or “prescriptions” and cross reference then to the 4473. Note that there has been zero effort to do so.
Right.
The “police” have not much to do with this, it is the ATF. The ATF could arrest so many people on this if they wanted to, it would be ridiculous.
Yeah, how can that be?
They are. They can be fired.
This is an opinion piece, and it assumes there is a plea offer on the table. I don’t think there is. Hunter Biden did accept a plea offer originally. But do you have any information that it or any other plea offer has been renewed?
Funny how you think only some political family members (Democratic) should be subjected to heightened legal scrutiny. And you seem fine with that. Any suspicions around the Trump children’s or their spouses’ dealings while Daddy pretended to be presidentin’? No?
Yeah, the GOP already had a shit fit over the previous plea deal, they would go bonkers here.
And should trumps relatives face the same scrutiny- looks like they didnt-
There was “no doubt” that the Trump children “approved, knew of, agreed to, and intentionally inflated the numbers to make more sales,” one person who saw the emails told us. “They knew it was wrong.”
Kasowitz, who by then had been the elder Donald Trump’s attorney for a decade, is primarily a civil litigator with little experience in criminal matters. But in 2012, Kasowitz donated $25,000 to the re-election campaign of Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., making Kasowitz one of Vance’s largest donors. Kasowitz decided to bypass the lower-level prosecutors and went directly to Vance to ask that the investigation be dropped…Ultimately, Vance overruled his own prosecutors. Three months after the meeting, he told them to drop the case.
Agreed. Hunter would have to propose a bad-for-him deal to make up for all the embarrassment he has caused his Dad over the years.
I hope I never said that. I tentatively suggested a higher standard for lawyers, thinking that there already may be one. (And there is – loss of livelihood by disbarment).
I was thinking that Republican politician parents wiil not have such worries about unfair treatment from Democrats, but I could be wrong.
This isn’t really how the law works. It’s not up to Hunter Biden to propose wearing a hair shirt to “make up for all the embarrassment he has caused his Dad over the years” in order for a plea arrangement to be just. The plea arrangement offered should be in accordance with how other defendants in similar situations are treated. The one that was offered turned out not to be.
You seem to think that Hunter Biden is in a “unique” situation. He really isn’t. Every fact situation is different, but the underlying elements of a crime are the same and apply – or should apply – to everyone equally.
I’m not sure why you have difficulty with this concept. You keep trying to draw some distinction for Hunter Biden that I just don’t see.
This seems to strain at making an excuse for Hunter (assuming allegations turn out to be proven).
Almost everyone agrees that cocaine is worse than marijuana (or that marijuana isn’t bad at all).
I would say that when you buy illegal cocaine you are funding foreign warlords. Very bad. When you are buying and using legal pot, you are, at worst, hurting your own lungs.
Yes, I know, Hunter isn’t charged with buying cocaine, only with breaking a law that disincentivizes buying cocaine.
If HB is convicted, making excuses for him will make Democrats look to swing voters – yes, some exist – like the Republicans who make excuses for Donald Trump. Bad look, bad, to me, policy.
Agreed they should apply equally.
I just think it is an impossible goal.
Commit a crime on on the Philadelphia side of City Avenue, you famously serve a shorter sentence than if you commit it on the suburban side. Unfair? Yes. But this kind of disparity is pretty common. I hope Hunter is innocent, but if he did what he is charged with, Democrats should not complain that he gets a longer sentence than some others.
As for trying to make a second amendment case out of it, there would be tremendous drama to see how Thomas and Alito would rule. Expand gun rights, or stop the alleged Biden Crime Family? What a choice for them!
Ability to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court does not apply to everyone equally. Should in? In utopia, yes.
I’ll let the simple English of the article speak for itself. Feel free to continue twisting it into some tortured interpretation rather than simply concluding you were mistaken.
I haven’t followed this case for a long time, I think the charge has something to do with guns? If so, I suppose [sarcastic voice] the right wing is marching to demand that he be found innocent. As a liberal, I think Hunter has to take one for the team. He should not plead out, if he is offered that, he should accept a guilty verdict. Suspended sentence, surely. And that way, the American public will see that there is no bias in our justice system, and faith in our judicial system will be restored. Commie (or is it Fascist?) Joe Biden doesn’t just go after Trump, he goes after his own son! [/sarcasm voice]
The MAGAts will not be happy unless Hunter is sentenced to death. Probably not even then.
Not if Necromancer Stephen Miller has anything to say about it!
Absolutely the case:
Trump Says Hunter Biden Should’ve Gotten the Death Penalty for Not Paying His Taxes on Time
That’s an excellent reason to vote for Joe Biden for president. It’s not a reason to drop charges against Hunter.
per cnn:
The indictment stems from a 2018 gun purchase. While buying the revolver in Delaware, Biden lied on a federal form, swearing that he was not using, and was not addicted to, any illegal drugs – even though he was struggling with crack cocaine addiction at the time of the purchase.
It’s a federal crime to lie on the ATF form or to possess a firearm as a drug user. He possessed the gun for 11 days in 2018.
If convicted on all counts, Biden could theoretically face as much as 25 years in prison and fines of up to $750,000, according to court filings.
However, defendants very rarely get the maximum penalty, especially in cases like these, involving non-violent crimes and an alleged first-time offender.
The charges followed a botched agreement: Last June, Weiss announced a two-pronged agreement where Biden would plead guilty to two federal tax misdemeanors and enter a “diversion agreement” where the gun charge would be dropped in two years if he passed regular drug tests and stayed out of legal trouble.
However, at a July 2023 hearing, the agreement collapsed after a judge said she had “concerns” about the parties seemingly linking the tax plea agreement to resolving a felony gun charge. Attorney General Merrick Garland named Weiss as special counsel the month after.
Court is back in session for day three of the Hunter Biden trial. The defense attorneys are resuming cross-examination of FBI agent Erika Jensen.
rc: i believe the defence is going for a technicality here. that hunter was in a sober period of his addiction, and that he read the question (if he even read it carefully) as his state of being on that day.
per cnn:
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell laid out his version of the case and strategy moving forward in the opening statements and during cross-examination of the FBI agent in the afternoon.
Not only did Lowell say that prosecutors must prove Biden knowingly violated the law when he bought the gun, but the attorney also argued that many of the text messages prosecutors had cited about the attempts to get drugs were months apart from when he purchased the firearm.
Cross examination of the prosecution’s first witness, an FBI agent, will continue this morning and Biden’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle is likely to take the stand today.
per cnn:
In cross examination of the FBI agent who introduced several chapters of Hunter Biden’s memoir, defense attorney Abbe Lowell highlighted that the book doesn’t discuss specific drug use at the time of the gun purchase.
“We used the items that were evidence of addiction,” FBI agent Erika Jensen said in response to Lowell’s questions over the book.
Jensen did not point to any specific part of the book when Lowell asked if it contained any detailed description of drug use in the fall of 2018, when Biden purchased the firearm.
The defense is also trying to argue that Biden was abusing alcohol, but not necessarily drugs, in October 2018 when he bought the gun.
Lowell just showed the jury a $48 payment from October 1, 2018, that Biden made at a place called “Liquor Time Liquors.”
The federal gun forms ask buyers if they are users of, or addicted to, illegal drugs. It says nothing about alcohol. Lowell said in his opening statement Tuesday that a drunk person could still legally buy a gun.
There were several liquor purchases that Lowell highlighted from October 2018 in Wilmington during the same month and city where Biden bought the gun.
Under cross-examination, FBI special agent Erika Jensen said investigators couldn’t verify that Hunter Biden actually did what he claimed he was doing in the texts being used as evidence against him.
In the first message, Hunter Biden said he was meeting a dealer named “Mookie” near the minor league ballpark in Wilmington.
In the second message, Hunter Biden said he was smoking crack “on a car” at a street corner in downtown Wilmington.
But it’s unknown if those things actually occurred.
“No,” Jensen said, when asked if she knew if those events really happened.
She also said she did not know if Mookie, the dealer, even existed.
The defense is trying to undermine prosecutors’ suggestion that Hunter Biden’s many cash withdrawals were tied to his alleged crimes – the gun purchase and the drugs.
Abbe Lowell, while questioning the special counsel’s lead-off witness, FBI special agent Erika Jensen, suggested that some of the cash that she tried to link to the October 2018 gun purchase may have actually been for rehab and addiction treatment.
Previously, Jensen testified that Biden withdrew cash on the day, October 12, 2018, he later paid in cash for the gun.
Lowell has not contested that Biden paid cash for the gun. But he has pointed out other payments for rehab, around that same time period, from Biden-linked bank accounts.
The cross-examination of FBI special agent Erika Jensen has concluded. Prosecutors are now moving to redirect.
As he neared the end of his questioning, Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell tried to undermine the credibility of the laptop and the authenticity of the messages found on the device.
“Did you find out if any of the files had been tampered with,” before the FBI obtained it in 2019, he asked.
“I did not,” Jensen replied.
Prosecutors objected when Lowell started asking some questions about the Wilmington repair shop owner who gave the laptop to the FBI.
Is the defense not allowed to question the chain of custody of the laptop? I am not certain, but I believe that in this case it is questionable. Didn’t the scumbag Guiliani have custody of it at some point?
That baffles me.
Has this been posted yet?
