US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter will plead not guilty to charges of illegally purchasing a gun.
Washington:
US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter will plead not guilty to a charge of illegally buying a gun while on drugs, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Hunter Biden, 53, was charged last week with making false statements when he claimed on forms needed for a 2018 gun purchase that he was not using illegal drugs at the time.
On Tuesday, Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe David Lowell, asked the judge presiding over the case in the eastern state of Delaware to hold the first court hearing by videoconference instead of requiring his client to attend in person.
Hunter Biden currently lives in California.
“Mr. Biden understands both the charges against him and his rights… and we believe the Court can be assured of that fact by conducting this initial appearance by video,” Lowell said in the letter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher Burke .
“Mr. Biden will also plead not guilty, and there is no reason why he cannot say those two words by video conference,” Lowell said.
“Mr. Biden is not seeking special treatment in making this request,” he added. “He has been and will be present at any procedure requiring his physical appearance.”
Hunter Biden also faces a third charge, based on the same statements, that he illegally possessed the gun over an 11-day period in October 2018.
If convicted of all three charges, he could face up to 25 years in prison, although in practice these offenses are rarely punished with prison time.
The indictment came two days after Republicans in Congress opened an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, a Democrat, alleging that when the elder Biden was vice president, he benefited financially from his son’s foreign business dealings.
They alleged, without providing hard evidence, that Biden, while vice president in 2015-2016, intervened to protect an allegedly corrupt Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, where Hunter Biden sat on the board.
The gun charges against Hunter Biden were brought by Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, who has been investigating him since 2018 on several allegations mainly related to his foreign business deals.
A plea deal between Hunter Biden and Weiss, which related to the gun charges and alleged tax violations, collapsed two months ago.
Hunter Biden is a Yale-educated lawyer and lobbyist turned artist, but his life has been marred by alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction and his indictment has cast a shadow over his father’s re-election campaign next year.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
