Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, arrives for closed testimony with members of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, which is conducting an impeachment inquiry into the president, at the O’Neill House Office Building in Washington, U.S., March 28. February 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected a request from Hunter Biden to dismiss the pending gun criminal case against him, saying his appeal was premature.
The ruling clears the way for Hunter Biden’s trial in the case to begin on June 3 in U.S. District Court in Delaware. Biden is the son of President Joe Biden.
In its ruling Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Hunter Biden had failed to demonstrate that the trial judge’s April decision to allow the gun case to proceed came before a final ruling that included his sentencing could belong, is contestable.
The appeals panel, whose decision was unanimous, did not rule on the merits of Biden’s arguments to dismiss the charges.
If Biden is convicted at trial, he could re-present the arguments for dismissal to the same appeals court that rejected it in its Thursday order.
Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, suggested he would ask a full panel of judges from the 3rd Circuit to reconsider Biden’s appeal and could even ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
“In reviewing the panel’s decision, we believe the issues involved are too important and further review of our application is warranted,” Lowell said.
Biden is charged with three felonies related to purchasing a handgun while addicted to illegal drugs. He has pleaded not guilty.
In late 2023, Biden’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika to dismiss the charges against him on three separate grounds.
First, the charges violated a non-prosecution provision in a pretrial diversion agreement that Biden and prosecutors signed before a planned deal in the case to avoid indictment collapsed last year.
In their second motion to dismiss, Biden’s lawyers claimed he was vindictively and selectively prosecuted because his father is the president. According to this argument, the prosecution violates the separation of powers provision in the U.S. Constitution because it was mismotivated by Republicans in Congress, who have turned him into a political whipping boy to attack the president.
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The third motion to dismiss argued that the Justice Department’s appointment of David Weiss as special counsel to handle Biden’s cases violated federal rules that require special counsel to be selected from outside the U.S. government. Weiss was the U.S. attorney for Delaware at the time of his appointment as special counsel and remains in that position.
Noreika rejected all three arguments for dismissing the charges in separate rulings in April.
Biden is being charged separately with tax crimes by Weiss in federal court in Los Angeles. The judge in that case rejected eight defense requests in early April to dismiss the case, in which Biden pleaded not guilty.
This is developing news. Check back for updates.
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2024-05-10 00:54:13
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