Why Hunter Biden is in court again

Joe Biden faces a moment of "searing personal anguish" today when his son, Hunter, goes on trial for allegedly lying about illegal drug use while purchasing a handgun.

Four days after Donald Trump became the first president convicted in a court of law, Biden Junior will become the first child of a US president to face a criminal trial, a development that will further "deepen the election's legal entanglement", said CNN.

What is Hunter Biden accused of?

In September, prosecutors said they had indicted 54-year-old Biden on three gun charges related to his purchase of a Colt Cobra revolver handgun in October 2018, two months after a stay in rehab. 

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Two of the counts relate to Biden allegedly lying about his drug use on a federal application form he filled in to buy the weapon, with a third charge of possessing an illegally obtained firearm for 11 days in October 2018. Biden has pleaded not guilty.

A plea deal, which had been expected to lead to Biden admitting to a series of tax and gun offences in order to avoid prison time, fell through last summer, after Republicans argued Biden was receiving a "sweetheart deal", and tax investigators said politics had hampered their probe.

The trial, which is expected to take between three and five days, will be held in Delaware "within walking distance" of his father's campaign headquarters in Wilmington, said The New York Times (NYT). 

Two of the charges each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, while the third carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. But non-violent first-time offenders "rarely get serious prison time for the charges", said the NYT.

Does this relate to the laptop saga?

Hunter Biden's notorious laptop has "become a symbol of the legal and political controversy surrounding the president's son in recent years", said ABC News, and prosecutors hope to use its contents as evidence in the firearms trial.

The "seedy contents" of the laptop, left by Hunter at a Delaware repair shop, featured prominently in the 2020 presidential campaign, said the BBC. It has already "provided proof" of Hunter's considerable earnings from his work in China and Ukraine, which are "stoking the nascent impeachment inquiry" into President Biden.

And what about that tax case?

In December, federal prosecutors filed nine new tax charges against Biden, claiming that he avoided paying at least $1.4 million (£1.1 million) in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for between 2016 and 2019.

Announcing charges that include failure to file and pay taxes, false tax return and evasion of assessment, the prosecutors claimed that, instead of paying what he owed, Biden splashed his money on "drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature".

They said he "individually received more than $7m in total gross income" between 2016 and mid-October 2020, but "wilfully failed" to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time. He belatedly paid all his taxes and fines in 2020.

What impact might the gun trial have on the election?

The hearing will "hand a political weapon" to Republicans "desperate for a distracting issue" in the wake of Donald Trump's 34-count conviction last week, said The Guardian.

But the Democrats could try and turn it to their favour, said CNN, as the trial could "blunt claims by the GOP" that the Justice Department targets only Republicans, particularly at a time when a Democratic senator, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, is also on trial in New York.

The White House has ruled out a pardon for Hunter, but the president insists his son did nothing wrong. In a "symbolic show of support", the president was seen with his son on a bike ride near his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, over the weekend.