Below is an expanded version of my column in the New York Post on the rather bizarre filing of Hunter Biden this week in the Delaware gun charge case. Hunter draws comparisons with the children of undocumented migrants, dead Tsars, and Japanese internment camp victims. It then gets really weird…
Here is the column:
Hunter Biden is comparable to children in Japanese internment camps, to undocumented immigrants, to the murdered descendants of the Tsar.
At least that’s what he argues in a new court filing in his federal gun case, which presents Hunter as one of the most tragic figures since the fall of Troy. Literally.
Hunter v. Hunter
The brief starts by asking the court to ignore Hunter’s own admissions as to his use of drugs during the period of his gun ownership. As discussed in earlier columns, Hunter faces a serious problem in proving a prior defense by his counsel Abbe Lowell.
Last October, Lowell argued that Hunter had not lied on ATF Form 4473 when he indicated he was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, narcotics: “At the time that he purchased this gun, I don’t think there’s evidence that that’s when he was suffering.”
The problem is that Hunter discussed his roaring addiction in his book, Beautiful Things: A Memoir, which he has used to excuse years of alleged influence peddling and an array of possible crimes from drug use to sex trafficking to tax offenses. The narrative was pushed by his counsel and picked up by the media which showered him with praise for his courage.
Now, however, counsel wants the Court to forget the admissions such as Hunter admitted that he was “drinking a quart of vodka a day by yourself in a room is absolutely, completely debilitating” as was “smoking crack around the clock.” He describes his addiction as running up to the announcement of his father for presidential election.
The book is not his only problem. Recently, the government has revealed that, when it recovered the gun after its was discarded near a school, the gun pouch was coated in cocaine.
Lowell expressed outrage that the government would cite his client’s own words or cite the fact that his gun pouch looked like it came from the desk of Tony Montana.
Calling the use of his client’s words “despicable,” Lowell suggests that the prosecutors “should visit an Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous meeting.” If that was not bizarre enough, he then describes Hunter’s other towering burden: being the son of one of the most powerful people on Earth.
Hunter Through History
While Hunter repeatedly used that connection for appointments and influence peddling, it is also apparently his curse. Indeed, he suggests that it is a protected “immutable characteristic,” a term used often in cases protecting minorities from racial discrimination. Somehow his prosecution for a gun violation would raise constitutional concerns since “the First Amendment … protects the freedom of association among family members—particularly as the parent-child relationship is an immutable characteristic.”
He shares how he carries the same burden as other accursed children.
In a brief that borders on delusional, Biden’s lawyers say the son of the president who burned through millions from influence peddling is comparable to all those unfortunate and destitute souls.
While the media has endlessly covered how Donald Trump’s arguments are over-the-top in issues such as immunity, there appears to be comparably little interest in the president’s son’s self-aggrandizing demand for dismissal of his criminal charges.
One of the filing’s main arguments is that Hunter Biden is being selectively prosecuted because of his father.
Hunter profited massively from the Biden name, but now, his lawyer Abbe Lowell argues, he’s suffering from the “burden” of parentage.
To back up this argument, Lowell cites Plyler v. Doe, a case involving the providing of free education to the children of illegal immigrants, to say that the Constitution, “prevents the government from inflicting harm on children for the conduct of their parents.”
That’s right, Joe Biden is like an undocumented migrant father who carried his kid over the border for a better life.
One can only imagine the press response to any comparison of the Trump children to migrant children.
Hunter also cites cases involving children born out of wedlock in need of court protection. The argument is particularly ironic since Hunter Biden fought to prevent his daughter Navy Joan from using his last name.
Perhaps the most insulting analogy is to the treatment of children in Japanese internment camps.
Hunter quotes the dissent in the infamous Korematsu v. United States in describing how the government in that case was attempting “to make an otherwise innocent act a crime merely because this prisoner is the son of parents as to whom he had no choice, and belongs to a race from which there is no way to resign.”
It is not exactly the image that comes to mind in photos of Hunter in high-priced hotels surrounded by prostitutes and a Smörgåsbord of narcotics.
It then gets even weirder. Hunter tells the court that it is precisely “great privilege” that makes children like him “the target of animus for that very reason . . . History is replete with children of political figures being abducted and assassinated literally (e.g., murder of Romanov children by Russian revolutionaries) or figuratively (e.g., Odysseus murdering the son of Crown Prince Hector when sacking Troy).”
There seems to be no victim in history who was not a precursor to Hunter.
At one point, they suggest that prosecuting Hunter for a gun charge is similar to Joe McCarthy forcing a senator to retire by threatening to reveal that his son was homosexual.
Of course, that analogy omits that Hunter wrote a book about his conduct and that this is a gun charge of the type that his own father pushed for strict enforcement.
Nevertheless, this twisted historical reference allowed counsel to remind the court that Roy Cohn worked for Joe McCarthy and later for Donald Trump. Of course, Robert Kennedy also worked for Joe McCarthy, but the Cohn connection was somehow relevant to Hunter lying on a gun form.
Moreover, it is hard to see the selective prosecution in a case that resulted from a sweetheart deal collapsing in open court after a prosecutor admitted that he had never seen such a generous deal.
As his father once said, “no one f–ks with a Biden.” Whistleblowers have testified that Hunter avoided prosecution for years precisely because he was a Biden. Indeed, the evidence shows Biden reminding everyone of his father in shaking down clients.
In one call he literally describes his father sitting next to him to drive home the threat, declaring “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled…I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight…I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
Still, the motion is worth reading for its unrivaled chutzpah.
Hunter even cites Article III, Section 3 in claiming that he is being punished for his father’s position. He suggests that the Framers would have been appalled after they sought to prohibit “the common law ‘Corruption of Blood’ penalty that would destroy inheritance rights of children based on their parent’s crimes.”
Of course, the only corruption of the blood evident in the broader scandal is the corruption of influence peddling by the Biden family for years. For the moment, it is the crimes of the son, not the father, that demands answers in Delaware.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
Here is the filing: Hunter Biden Reply Brief
N.B.: I removed a line on the Trojan War that erroneously said that the motion referenced the killing of Hector, not his son.
I believe that Abbe Lowell forgot to mention that Hunter is a struggling artist.
want to see just a selection of the KNOWN crimes of the Bidens? www “bidenreport” com webpage….start at page 55
so why are Democrats fine with Bidens getting millions from China, Russia, etc?
what do Democrats care….GOP keeps giving them money and the DOJ, IRS, FBI, etc are 100% corrupt for them!
Wow, so much of this sounds vaguely familiar, are you sure Michael D. Cohen isn’t representing Hunter???
Robert ‘Hunter’ Biden Esq. the product of Yale Law School doing his own handy work and sober at that, along with Abbe D. Lowell the product of Columbia Law School, it all seems a a lot like Michael Cohen’s per se work.
Maybe its just a case of the Blind leading the Blind. Anyway it surmounts to another ‘distraction’ in a World escalating towards WW∙III.
I think you are on to something! Lying Cohen is doing this for free in hopes of a pardon perhaps? Sounds like it.
In my experience clients don’t usually know what’s in their lawyers’ brief. I’m not saying that’s true here, but it could be. Unlike pleadings, briefs do not need to be read and verified by the litigant. It falls to the opposing counsel to make fun of this brief and make it look ridiculous in the court’s eyes. The opposing counsel (in this instance, the federal government) may be conflicted, though, since the defendant’s father is its boss.
The Biden’s must be getting desperate to file something like that.
It reads more like a comedy.
I doubt you read the actual reply. I bet you’re relying on JT’s tiny excerpts to judge it.
So you buy idiot talking heads off MSM that do not even cite what they are criticizing and you reject Turley’s well cited peice ?
Grow up – the Trump lawfare is slowly coming apart. The Biden corruption investigations are slowly building steam.
This is unsurprising as the Trump claims have always required you to beleive in the improbable, while the Biden claims have always had a high probability of truth.
I’m the one who posted a link to all of the briefs and replies in my 9:26 AM comment. And I don’t own a TV.
Linking to Hunter’s lawyers engaging in more of the same that Turley is writing about – is not an argument.
You allege that Turley has warped and distored the briefs – – prove that.
What I have read – DOES NOT.
Few of us are going to rummage through a thousand pages of what Turley has cited in the forlorn explection that there might be something substanative in them somewhere.
Turley has far more credibility than you – Prove your argument – or atleast make it.
DEFINE “COURT”
BAR”
Saint Hunter !!! This is Museum Grade Bull$$it !!
Link to the filing results in “Page Not Found”.
See my 9:26 AM comment for a link to the filing and related motions.
Dear Lord, help us rid ourselves of this rolling clown act called “The Bidens”!
OT: Trump’s Steele dossier lawsuit has been dismissed by a London court.
Putting all humor aside: IMHO, Hunter’s then romantic relationship (Beau’s wife it was I believe) probably got rid of the gun because he was at the time possibly in and out of rages from the drug and alcohol use? And who wants a gun in her home with children living there? Was he in and out of threatening behavior, threatening to harm himself? And to sober up on the reality–usually when you find families dead, sadly, it starts with murder and ends up with suicide.
While the gun was improperly disposed of – no one is being charged with that.
Hunter is being charged with lying on a sworn statement required to purchase the gun in the first place.
hunter is free to try to prove he did not lie. but that is going to be hard to do because of his own writing.
Wow, a quart of vodka a day, that’s a lot of vodka. As vodka is usually thought of as a Russian drink why not blame the Russians? There’s also an endorsement opportunity for whatever brand of vodka he was drinking, don’t you think?
A quart a day will get you tagged an alcoholic, but it is not that much for alcoholics.
A Greek Hero??? more like the god Dionysus or one of his satyrs.
I am beginning to sound like the proverbial broken record, but here goes. The article illustrates my contention that The Law is now no more than a game fought in courtrooms by legal hired guns and black robed referees. Justice was long ago trampled underfoot and lies dying. The arguments put forth by Hunter Biden’s lawyers are superfluous, almost comedic, and downright absurd. I might add the word “insulting” to the list. Yet, time after time, it seems to work. It suffices for the referees. The result is that the American People consider the Law a joke deserving neither respect nor obedience. So, Justice lies dying and the Law is on life support. In the vacuum, Chaos and Anarchy will be born.
I would add “politically biased” before “black robed referees”. Otherwise your comment is spot on.
The result is that the American People consider the Law a joke deserving neither respect nor obedience. So, Justice lies dying and the Law is on life support. In the vacuum, Chaos and Anarchy will be born.
Excellent Clarke! You have perfectly channeled Frederic Bastiat. Thus proving his wisdom on the purpose of The Law. And of course yours.
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking.
In the first place, it erases from everyone’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
“Justice was long ago trampled underfoot and lies dying. …So, Justice lies dying and the Law is on life support. In the vacuum, Chaos and Anarchy will be born.”
Penley, isn’t that the desire of those wishing to inflict their will on others? Their first act has to be to destroy the good in order to replace it with their brand of evil.
By the way, I like your writing style.
The entire gun charge is a coverup. Hunter was involved in a corrupt ring that included senators and congressmen making private side deals with Ukraine. The Ukrainian servers were located in the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms area since at least 2001, and the group communicated using military-grade encrypted Blackberry’s that not even the NSA could break. The guys with the orange hats on Jan 6 were the ones who stole the laptops and removed the servers to hide this ring. That’s what Jan 6 was all about. This Hunter trial is just another Swamp play enacted for the dupes known as the American public and our so-called “journalists.” The Swamp is laughing at us and for good reason.
The gun that Hunter owned illegally and was thrown in the trash by his erstwhile lover was a .38 Colt Cobra, a five-shot revolver. A photo obtained from the now-authenticated laptop belonging to Hunter that he abandoned at a repair shop clearly shows Hunter brandishing an automatic pistol that in no way resembles a Colt Cobra. So, the question remains, what did Hunter do with the automatic, how did he have it in his possession, and where is it now? Hunter no doubt will plead guilty to the gun charges after Lowell tries to get him another deal for doing so. The Biden Crime Family cannot risk having the government call Beau Biden’s widow – Hunter’s former paramour – as a hostile witness against Hunter. It was she, after all, that tossed Hunter’s Colt Cobra into the trashcan and that makes her a fact witness.
For a better discussion that also has links to the various motions:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/01/31/chessboards-hunter-bidens-replies/
The brief that JT is discussing is labelled “Reply, Selective Prosecution”
“Recently, the government has revealed that, when it recovered the gun after its was discarded near a school, it was coated in cocaine” is false. It was a pouch, not the gun, that had the cocaine residue. Turley can’t even get basic facts right.
The gun was not tested. The pouch containing the gun was tested and found to have cocaine residue. You are trying to claim the gun from the pouch was not covered in cocaine residue.
Water is wet, I pulled if from the water, I cannot claim the item was wet.
“You are trying to claim the gun from the pouch was not covered in cocaine residue.”
No, but AFAIK, they didn’t test the gun for cocaine residue. Do you know differently?
Moreover, there’s a broken chain of custody when the gun and pouch were tossed into a dumpster and found by someone else. For all you know, the cocaine residue came from the dumpster.
And bills in your wallet likely have cocaine residue: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency/
Why is it that everytime I read something about the Biden family I want to take a shower?
Same here. I was going to take a break from commenting as I’ve been getting a tad bit too ranty of late, but this dude simply takes the cake; the family are a damn bakery. All the forehead slaps. 🙄🙄 He is not just insufferable but legitimately deranged.