President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, is convicted of all 3 felonies in federal gun trial

kescusay@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 192 points –
President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, is convicted of all 3 felonies in federal gun trial
apnews.com
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Sharing this here because the difference in responses to this guilty verdict couldn't be more stark. During his time in office, Trump pardoned close associates of various crimes. Out of a sense of integrity, Biden has said he won't pardon his son.

The charges are absurd, but he was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and Biden won't put his thumb on the scales.

Trump put his children in the white house, making them politically relevant. If Trump had said anything about pardoning his children, thst would have been political news.

Hunter has nothing to do with politics other than Republicans trying to equate having children with nepotism. This is not politics.

Conservatives love making children political though.

  • Having sex but don't want children? You're a godless slut.

  • Pregnant and don't want children? You're not capable of making decisions about your body.

  • Had an abortion? You're an evil baby killing slut.

  • Have children you don't want? You're a slut who shouldn't have sex if you couldn't feed your kids.

  • Child of a Democratic president going through awkward teenage years? You're a horse face, Chelsea Clinton.

  • Try to reach American soil to claim asylum? We're gonna keep your kids in cages, argue in front of a judge that we're not obligated to give them any hygienic items like soap or toothpaste, and deport you. Hope your home country isn't as dangerous as you thought it was!

  • You're a loving couple in a committed relationship who want to adopt one of the many "unwanted" children in our foster system? Get fucked queers; our god says only the straights get to enjoy being parents.

  • Your child needs medical care? Why should my tax dollars pay for that?

  • Your local public school sucks? Well maybe you should have been able to afford private tuition to a school that definitely doesn't exist because public schools were forced to integrate. Oh, and we're gonna siphon more money out of your kids' school to pay for ours- that tuition ain't cheap, you know.

And, for international flavor:

  • You don't want your kids to be genocided by Israel? Then maybe they shouldn't have been one of the more than 50% of Gaza's population who either weren't born or weren't old enough to vote 16 years ago when Hamas held their last election.

Yes, conservatives love pretending that non-political things are political. Per your examples having children is political, which would make the term political meaningless if we let them define political.

We need to stop politicising politics, clearly.

Trump, under a clear and disgusting display of nepotism, put his completely unqualified family members into positions of power.

Fixed that for you.

I completely agree. Just like I agreed with Fetterman for defending Boebert’s kids from public judgement. These people aren’t politicians. They don’t deserve the press scrutiny of a politician.

The charges are absurd

Why? Lying on the gun purchase background check form is a felony. It says so right above the signature line on the form. The evidence he lied on the form looks pretty strong.

I do realize the crime is not prosecuted often, but that seems like a mistake. The Charleston church shooter, for example should have failed his background check and been prosecuted for the same crime.

Theres no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt he was on substances when he purchased the firearm. The form asks if you're a USER of drugs. If he was not using substances when he was buying the firearm, he didn't lie.

That's fine. If this is now precedent, the government needs to go and retroactively charge all users, and not just a spotlight democrat.

27 CFR § 478.11 addresses that. The court is not making new law here.

Such use is not limited to the use of drugs on a particular day, or within a matter of days or weeks before, but rather that the unlawful use has occurred recently enough to indicate that the individual is actively engaged in such conduct. A person may be an unlawful current user of a controlled substance even though the substance is not being used at the precise time the person seeks to acquire a firearm or receives or possesses a firearm.

Right, the charges aren’t absurd at all. No one is above the law; not Hunter, not Trump. It applies to everyone. The evidence was provided to a jury of his peers, and they determined that that evidence proved his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Good, it's less the right can point to and say biden is a hypocrite on.

Who cares if they do? They literally lie to slander the "radical left" as they call it. They're shameless and half the eligible voters are too.

That saying of you don't stoop to your enemies tactics means a lot here. Just because they do illegal shit, doesn't mean everyone else should just say fuck it. Someone has to uphold the law. If the law is unjust then change the law

Exactly. Don't uphold the law to avoid being shamed by Republicans. Do it because it's the right thing to do and because it's extremely important to the integrity of our society.

So, we're now prosecuting all gun owners who have done drugs in the past?

Shout-out to all you 2nd Amendment bros.

Oh no, not all gun owners who’ve done drugs. Just certain ones.

The 2nd amendment bros aren’t going to help in this case. The NRA declined get involved in the police shooting of Philando Castile who was licensed to carry his gun and who told the police he was legally carrying it. The NRA said it was because he also was in possession of Marijuana, which makes it illegal for him to have a gun.

Do not lump the NRA in with gun owners. FUDDs are basically the only people who donate to the nra anymore. They're a trash ass organization that just shills for repubs. Every gun owner who isn't suckin the nras tit, thinks that the Castile case was bullshit, same with the Taylor shooting. Those cops should be in jail for murder.

They still mostly all vote for Republicans. The NRA doesn't need to radicalize them if they are already going to vote for the NRA's candidate (Republican).

Sure that I can't say they wouldn't, but they're not the NRA type anymore. A large portion are not the racist assholes the NRA stands for now.

Do remember there are a lot more gun owners now that are on the left. There are also a lot more minorities that are gun owners as well.

NRA has been conspicuously silent throughout all of this...

I can clearly imagine the response from the Trumpers:

"Biden WANTED to convict his son so he could make it SEEM like the justice system is fair, when really its all RIGGED!!!"

The conspiracy mind is hard to crack, and while I like seeing a fair an impartial system at work I don't think it will actually sway many people who think it's corrupt.

Hunter Biden’s conviction is the best possible evidence that the president is not “rigging” the criminal justice system. Will that stop Trump and his apologists from claiming otherwise? Of course not

“What are you a blind sheep? This is CLEARLY a RIGGED FALSE FLAG conviction that the CROOKED Democrats did to make everyone think that the justice system is fair but we’re TOO SMART for that and us REAL AMERICANS can see what they’re trying to do

Anyway donate money to my campaign”

and then trump shits himself and takes a nap or something, idk

Needs about 11% more spelling mistakes and 32% less sense

Damn.. you’re right. Ok, let me try eating McDonald’s and slugging Diet Coke every day for the next forty years and I’ll try it again.

You see, actually, it's a false flag conviction to make you think that. It just shows how deep the deep state runs!

What a poser. The other guy racked up more than 11 times as many conviction. Hunter is an amateur.

/s

Good thing the justice system is a scam and a hoax. Can't wait to hear how rigged this trial was tonight and for the next 3 weeks on fair and balanced FOX news. They should run together. Biden Jr/Trump 2024 - double the felons, double the fun.

That IT! I'm no longer voting Hunter Biden for president. Not that I was going to... But NOW I definitely won't!

“No one in this country is above the law,” special counsel David Weiss, the prosecutor who has led the long-running federal investigation into the president’s son, told reporters after the verdict.

Somebody remind this to Trump supporters.

Do the crime, do the time. You'll never see a conservative admit to this when it applies to Cheeto Jesus

I'm happy this stupid trial might be on its way out from the news headlines. It was utterly unimportant, but the media was trying to hype it as the mirror to Trump's trial. Literally the only legitimate news story was Biden saying he wouldn't pardon his son. That's it. Everything else is just news organizations failing to resist rightwing manipulation and/or their deeply held belief in finding a "both sides" for every issue.

Trump and every conservative mouth piece is going to bring this up constantly until the election. Example 1

I can think of 3 reasons why the journalists are interested in this.

  1. its saucy.

  2. Hunter Biden potentially learned how to be a man and inherited his character from his father

  3. the business dealings thing, they're investigating whether Joe Biden peddled his influence as senator and VP to benefit his kids financially, that he used his family as proxy for his own dishonest dealings using his position of power, or something like that.

For those 3 reasons I don't think this story is going to go away Amy time soon.

1 is yellow journalism, 2 is aggressively stupid, Joe Biden had two other adult children, one of which was a veteran, prosecutor, and AG, and 3 has been a years-long effort by Republicans which has never turned up anything to actually implicate Joe Biden.

None of those are things that an actual objective journalist would care about, it's just a play to be "fair and balanced" and attract conservative clicks. The last is the only one that would be newsworthy if true, but the Trump children have been unarguably profiting off him and his presidency and no one has chased that story for years.

Present Hunter Biden convicted of 3 felonies. Gonna look bad for Future Hunter Biden.

I'm not voting for Hunter Biden. He's a convicted felon!

Hunter is not involved in politics.

Good, because I won't vote for a felon.

Depends on the felony for me, since there are some people who have felonies but have reformed and some people who have ridiculous felonies from the war on drugs designed to ruin the lives of minorities. Most states make posessing any quantity of herion a felony. Someone who has been clean for decades could still get my vote if they aligned with my views because past drug use they learned from is not a dealbreaker for me.

Now violence based felonies or felonies related to running or being in office would be a hard no among some other ones.

A felony related to climate protesting and the like wouldn't bother me either. Not that it should be a felony in the first place, but it's plausible with the way that protesting is being cracked down on in many jurisdictions.

does this mean all the MAGAts are gonna vote for him now? next VP pick for Trump?

Oh look, nobody is blaming the DA or claiming that the trial and the judge were rigged. Funny that.

So maybe he gets sentenced to 3 months and then comes back to a new life?

Or the Trumpfus way.... revenge! Lol.