The charges filed against Hunter Biden are a travesty

On Thursday, Hunter Biden was formally charged with three felony violations related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018. Should he be found guilty on all three charges, President Joe Biden’s son faces up to $750,000 in fines and a potential 25 years in prison.

There is absolutely no doubt that Hunter Biden was using cocaine when he filled out an ATF firearms transaction record. There’s no doubt that he lied about this both when he filled out the form and when he affirmed to the dealer that the form was accurate. There’s no doubt that while owning the gun over a period of just 11 days, Hunter Biden was in violation of regulations against owning a firearm while addicted to illegal drugs. Biden admits to his 2018 addition in his memoir. The law extends back to any time in the last year. So … case closed.

Except that part of what makes a justice system a justice system is equal application of the laws to everyone. And what’s happening in this case is the opposite. Hunter Biden isn’t really being prosecuted for lying when he filled out a form five years ago. He’s being prosecuted for being Joe Biden’s son.

Just one year before Hunter Biden scribbled his name on that Form 4473, the General Accounting Office carried out a review of how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was dealing with those who lied when applying for a firearm.

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In that year, 112,090 were denied a gun during the application process for submitting “falsified information.” Of those, 12,710 were referred to the ATF for further investigation. And of those, the total number actually prosecuted was … 12.

That’s just 0.01% of those whose forms were rejected for providing false information. What’s more, the cases were referred for prosecution “when aggravating circumstances exist, such as violent felonies or multiple serious offenses over a short period of time.” None of those circumstances apply to Hunter Biden.

But it’s worse than those numbers might indicate. Hunter Biden was not caught lying on his form during his application. He wasn’t really caught at all. The only reason that prosecutors know about his addiction to cocaine during this period is that Hunter Biden wrote about his struggles with addiction in a 2021 memoir. So he’s being retroactively prosecuted for being honest about the difficulties he experienced and being forthright about his failures.

Biden wasn’t one of 112,090 who were singled out as lying on his form. He was one of 27 million who filled out that form and went on. Now the Department of Justice is backing up five years to charge Hunter Biden with something—for the purposes of charging Hunter Biden with something.

The recommendation of that GAO review in 2017 was that the ATF was spending too much time investigating falsified forms since follow-up prosecutions were so rare. Instead, the GAO recommended that the agency concentrate on keeping track of false information and making information about rejected forms available to local law enforcement. The DOJ concurred with GAO's recommendation.

Following the recommendations of the GAO, the number of cases referred for investigation in the year Hunter Biden made his purchase was greatly reduced, from 12,710 to just 478 referrals. That’s 0.002% of those who applied for a gun that year. But wait. It gets worse.

When The Washington Post took a look at this issue last year, they did so because the ATF and DOJ were being bombarded with tweets insisting that Hunter Biden be charged.

The controversy prompted us to request statistics from the Justice Department to determine whether someone falsely filling out the form faced much of a risk of prosecution.

It took months to obtain the data. The answer, it turns out, is no.

According to the Post, most of the cases prosecuted for lying on the form “concerned obvious instances of ‘straw buyers’” where someone was sent into a store to buy a gun for someone else who couldn’t legally purchase a gun, because they had already been convicted of a violent crime. Which seems like exactly the sort of thing the law was designed to catch in the first place.

But of all the statistics that show just how selective “justice” is being in the case of Hunter Biden, the results of a Freedom of Information request sent to Delaware for the year in which the purchase was made may be the most damning.

The provided information shows that in fiscal year 2019, only three Form 4473 cases were referred for prosecution in Delaware. The U.S. attorney for Delaware—that would be David Weiss, the same U.S. attorney in charge of the investigation into Hunter Biden—opted to prosecute none of these cases. None.

Confronted with three other cases involving the exact same charge in the same state, in the same year, Weiss decided to file no charges. But Hunter Biden is getting three charges and the possibility of 25 years.

That really is some very special justice.

Kerry talks with Drew Linzer, director of the online polling company Civiqs. Drew tells us what the polls say about voters’ feelings toward President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and what the results would be if the two men were to, say … run against each other for president in 2024. Oh yeah, Drew polled to find out who thinks Donald Trump is guilty of the crimes he’s been indicted for, and whether or not he should see the inside of a jail cell.

Republicans Had Info On Racism Charges Against Biden’s ATF Nominee Two Months Ago – And Sat On It

Senate Judiciary Republicans allegedly had information regarding racism charges against David Chipman, President Biden’s anti-gun nominee for Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and kept it under wraps for over two months.

A recent report corroborated that Chipman made racially charged statements about black ATF agents who were up for promotion.

“He made some comments that he was surprised by the number of African Americans who have made it onto a specific promotional list,” a current ATF official told The Reload.

“So, his insinuation was that they had to have cheated,” the official added. “Which is kind of despicable.”

Multiple complaints were lodged against Chipman and the official alleges it ended his time working in the ATF’s Detroit Field Office.

“He left Detroit because of that,” they said. “He did not leave Detroit on the best of terms. His reputation was that he was not nice to people.”

RELATED: Could Senate Democrats Sink Biden’s Anti-Gun Nominee For ATF Director?

ATF Nominee Accused Of Racism

Last week, every GOP senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded a second hearing for ATF nominee David Chipman in part because of the racism charges.

In a press release, the lawmakers wrote that the committee must address “allegations that Mr. Chipman made racist statements about the abilities of African American ATF agents, the existence of which allegations have been confirmed by current and former ATF officials.”

They believe the comments speak to Chipman’s character.

A report by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) indicates staffers for the Senate Judiciary Republicans were informed of the racism charges nearly two months ago.

The staffers were reportedly notified that the ATF official was willing to speak with them about the claims.

The DCNF writes that “one of the staffers said their hands were tied and that the committee couldn’t reach out to the former agent to corroborate the allegation on their own due to ‘optics.'”

The information was received on June 10th, while the DCNF reported on the racism charges against Chipman on June 22nd.

Senate Judiciary Republicans did not call for a second hearing until late July.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene Introduces Bill To Abolish The ATF

David Chipman Appeared On Chinese State-Run TV

In addition to the racism charges, Senate Judiciary Republicans would also like to address news of an appearance Chipman made on Chinese State TV in 2012.

Chipman failed to disclose the appearance which, according to Fox News, “may have been used as propaganda by the communist state to cover up a mass stabbing of children.”

CNN has described Chipman as a “fierce advocate for gun control” who spent over two decades as a special agent with the ATF and has worked as a senior policy adviser for ‘Giffords,’ a gun control group formed by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ).

Chipman’s first appearance before the Senate in May was a disaster by any measure as he struggled to define an ‘assault weapon’ and said he supports a ban on AR-15s.

“With respect to the AR-15, I support a ban as has been presented in a senate bill and supported by the president,” Chipman told Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) at the time.

Chipman has also argued in favor of a “well-regulated” Second Amendment and compared some gun owners to the ‘Tiger King.’

Last month, House Republicans pushed a resolution to impeach Biden’s ATF nominee before he has even been confirmed.

 

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