Justice Department prosecutors may have some challenges in court if the gun case against Hunter Biden does go to trial, according to Jennifer Rodgers, a former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst.
“I certainly, if I were making history, would not want to make it with this set of facts and these laws,” she said referring to the first time the Department of Justice has charged the son of a sitting president.
Hunter Biden’s defense team has several good arguments, she said, and additionally, gun laws could be on shaky constitutional grounds.
Federal prosecutors charged the president’s son with three crimes — two counts for alleged false statements he made while purchasing the gun and a third count for possessing the gun while addicted to drugs.
Most recently, an appeals court covering three southern states ruled in August that one of the gun possession laws Hunter Biden is charged with is unconstitutional and violates the Second Amendment.
Rodgers said the section that covers an addict being in possession of a weapon is rarely charged because many similar gun statutes are “not indisputable.”
“If you are a felon, which you can prove just on the paper, and you possess a gun, you’re guilty. It’s a little bit different when you talk about an addict. It’s usually very hard to prove,” she said. “Granted, easier if you’re someone who has written an autobiography, but he could come back and say, ‘Listen, I was just embellishing, I was writing a book, I wanted to make money off it, I was lying.’”
Additionally, oftentimes prosecutors will use discretion and not bring these kinds of charges if the person no longer has a gun or is using drugs, Rodgers said. All of these various factors, plus the likelihood that Hunter Biden won’t want to “roll the dice either” on going to trial, means that there is “always a possibility that a deal could be struck,” she said.
“If you had someone who’s clearly not dangerous, assuming he stays clean and doesn’t possess a gun, that’s what we should all want,” Rodgers said. “Hopefully they can work out some sort of deal here that will stop short of actually going to trial on this.”