Thanks to rick223, Hunter Biden continues with is "Dark Hunter" legal strategy of " suing his enemies and aggressively meritless filings to dismiss.
Attorneys representing Hunter Biden have asked a federal judge to dismiss three felony gun charges he faces in Delaware as part of their effort to curb the increasingly fraught legal landscape faced by President Joe Biden's son.
In a flurry of court papers filed Monday, Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, offered a series of arguments for dismissing the gun case, claiming that the special counsel was "unlawfully appointed" and therefore lacks the authority to bring charges; that the immunity stipulation in a section of the parties' ill-fated plea deal remains in effect; and that the gun crimes in question may not be constitutional.
"These charges are unprecedented, unconstitutional and violate the agreement the U.S. Attorney made with Mr. Biden and DOJ's own regulations," Lowell said in a statement. "This is not how an independent investigation is supposed to work, and these charges should be dismissed."
We discussed this back then: That Hunter Biden would argue, possibly successfully that the fact that he had even discussed this immunity deal would be sufficient to actually deliver him that immunity. He'd claim that his agreement to the deal prejudiced him (somehow) so he should have the benefit of the deal.
In fact -- who knows -- maybe this was always the plan.
The other part, that the Special Counsel was "unlawfully appointed," is interesting. Conservatives have been arguing that for months. The DOJ rules say that a Special Counsel must be appointed from outside the DOJ, and Weiss was not from outside the DOJ. He was a US Attorney when appointed.
But that doesn't seem to be what Lowell/Hunter is arguing. They seem to be arguing that... Congress hasn't specifically appropriated money to fund this particular Very Special Prosecutor, so it's not a real Very Special Prosecutor?
I dunno, I never heard that sort of a claim before.
...
Weiss' office filed the gun-related charges in September, shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated him to special counsel.
He could have filed the charges before he was appointed Very Special Counsel -- in which case there'd be no technical objection to his capacity to bring the charges.
But he waited until there was a legal objection to his authority to bring the charges, to bring the charges.
The conduct described in charging documents dates to October of 2018, when Hunter Biden procured a gun despite later acknowledging in his memoir, "Beautiful Things," that he was addicted to drugs around that time.
...
And while the statute cited by prosecutors is clear -- it is a crime to lie on a gun application form or to possess a firearm as a drug user -- legal experts have said prosecutors could face headwinds. A federal appeals court in New Orleans recently ruled that drug use alone should not automatically prevent someone from obtaining a gun. That ruling is not binding, since the Fifth Circuit does not cover Delaware.
That's not the question -- the crime is LYING ON A GUN FORM.
If he told the truth, that he was an addict, he could have brought suit and argued that his addiction should not bar him from gun ownership. Instead, he lied on official gun purchase form. He committed perjury.
It's amazing how much the NewsGuard-approved media gets wrong in every singe article over matters so simple.
"While Congress could criminalize gun possession from someone who was actively intoxicated, or perhaps someone who at least actively had a controlled substance in their body, a prohibition on gun ownership by anyone who had at some time used a controlled substance is constitutionally overbroad," Lowell wrote.
That is a challenge to the law, maybe -- but he still committed perjury. I suppose Lowell is arguing that if he can manage to get that law struck down as unconstitutional, then a perjurious answer about it is immaterial.
You'll remember "immateriality" from Clinton's impeachment, of course. It's the idea that "yes, he told a lie, but there is no legal harm in the lie, because nothing changes, legally, depending on whether the answer was true or false." Lowell is trying to get the law changed so that drug addicts can own a gun, so that it doesn't matter if Hunter lied on his form and claimed he wasn't addicted to drugs.
But that won't work, because his argument isn't even that drug addiction is entirely irrelevant to owning a gun, it's just that owning a gun shouldn't be an automatic per-se bar to owning one -- the state should consider other factors or whatever. Even in Lowell's own argument, the state is still entitled to a truthful answer about whether the gun applicant is addicted to drugs, so Hunter's lie is still material and hence perjurious.
Lowell is also arguing that the sweetheart deal offered to Hunter Biden in a Double Secret Codicil hidden in a side-document so the judge would not see it was necessary and proper to protect Hunter against any future prosecutions by a Rogue Trump Prosecutor, and that the DOJ -- under the control of Hunter Biden's own fucking father -- is guilty of cowardice in bringing "severe" charges against Hunter under political pressure.
Clark in his declaration also highlighted the deal's importance in shielding Hunter Biden from prosecution from a "possible future Trump-led DOJ" -- highlighting the possible fear that if Trump were to win back the presidency in 2024, he could seek have Hunter Biden further investigated for the same crimes. As such, Clark said he emphasized that a "critical and essential" aspect of the deal with prosecutors was the "broad immunity provision" that in their view would bring "closure and finality" to the yearslong investigation.
"They did not disagree," Clark said of the prosecutors regarding that point.
Lowell said Weiss "buckled under political pressure to bring more severe charges," accusing the special counsel of waging a "selective and vindictive prosecution" by pressing gun charges against the president's son.
"This is perhaps the clearest of cases of prosecutors making prosecutorial decisions for political reasons, selectively and vindictively prosecuting Mr. Biden based on his familial and political affiliation with his father, the President of the United States," Lowell wrote.
"Indeed," Lowell added in a footnote, "if this case is not the one to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution and breach of separation of powers, it is unclear what is left of those doctrines."
Again, Lowell is claiming that a judge must grant Hunter Biden immunity that a judge never affirmed (immunity deals must be okayed by a judge, to make sure the deal is just, which it plainly was not) because only "political pressure" ON HUNTER BIDEN'S FUCKING CORRUPT FATHER caused the deal to be withdrawn and charges to be filed.
I mean: Seriously?
Are you kidding?
It takes a crackhead.
In very related news, Speaker Johnson says that the House must vote to impeach Biden, because Biden continues stonewalling Congress' legitimate demand for witnesses and documents.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday defended a vote scheduled this week to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, arguing that unlike what Democrats did with the "sham impeachment" of former President Trump, Republicans are committed to the "rule of law."
Fox News' Chad Pergram pressed Johnson on an expectation from the GOP base to bring an impeachment vote sometime in the spring ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Johnson explained that House Republicans have "come to this impasse" in their investigations into President Biden's alleged involvement in his son, Hunter Biden's business dealings, and are "hitting a stone wall because the White House is impeding that investigation" and not allowing witnesses to come forward and thousands of pages of documents. <>The vote on a resolution to formalize the House impeachment inquiry, which is currently set for Wednesday, is not the same as a vote to impeach.
"We have no choice to fulfill our constitutional responsibility. We have to take the next step. We're not making a political decision. It's not. It's a legal decision," Johnson said at the House Republican Conference press conference on Tuesday. "So people have feelings about it one way or the other. We can't prejudge the outcome. The Constitution does not permit us to do so. We have to follow the truth where it takes us and that is exactly what we're going to do."