politics

Indeed there should be consistency. What would normally happen in this situation was what would have happened if the judge hadn't blocked the original plea deal.

The office of the US attorney of Delaware, David Weiss, has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018 over potential violations of tax and gun laws. Weiss, who was appointed by Donald Trump, announced last month that his office had reached an agreement with Hunter Biden in which the president’s son would plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor tax violations while entering a pre-trial diversion program on a separate felony gun charge.

But the judge, another Trump appointee, no doubt saw the same opportunity that the GOP in congress did and rejected the plea deal. Because Hunter Biden is the son of the current Democratic president, he is not getting the same treatment that anyone else would have gotten in this situation.

Despite Republicans’ gripes, a number of legal experts have framed Hunter Biden’s indictment as unusually harsh, given that prosecutors rarely bring such gun charges. The law underlying one of the three criminal counts is also now facing legal challenges after the supreme court’s recent expansion of second amendment rights.

In fact, the law about drug users being in possession of firearms is one that has been effectively ruled unconstitutional in the fifth circuit thanks to challenges to it and recent SCOTUS rulings.

Those recent rulings include an August decision from the New Orleans-based US court of appeals for the fifth circuit that challenged the law barring users of illegal drugs from possessing firearms. The conservative-leaning court ruled that the supreme court’s decision last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc v Bruen, which established a new standard for reviewing firearm regulations in a historical context, rendered the 1968 law unconstitutional.

“In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage,” Judge Jerry Smith wrote in the ruling. “Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users.”

Also...

A separate case considered by the third circuit, which does cover Delaware, could also have some bearing on Hunter Biden’s case. In Range v Attorney General, the third circuit issued what the judges called a “narrow” decision indicating that the federal government cannot ban people convicted of non-violent crimes from possessing guns.

Republicans want the law overturned but not until Hunter is convicted and sentenced for it. That is not consistent application of the law, that is political gamesmanship.

He's being prosecuted for something people are almost never prosecuted for, especially when they pay the money back, which he did. On top of that, there's a gun charge which, for some reason I can't imagine, Republicans aren't rushing to his defense about.

Yeah it’s hard to describe how little I care about Hunter Biden as a political issue. As a human I want him to continue to get the help he needs to stay clean and healthy. As a member of society I want to see the rich and powerful held accountable. As a political event I could not care one iota less.

Ignoring the fact that it is extremely unusual to be indicted for tax fraud (usually just ends up with large fines and it looks like that this is done, because they desperately want something on his father), he is actually talking that they literally want to kill him. Biden was totally devastated when his other son died of cancer. That's why he didn't run in 2016.