President Joe Biden does not seem concerned about the optics of being seen with his son Hunter ahead of the first son’s criminal trial on three federal gun charges.
Hunter was photographed boarding Air Force One with his father on Thursday, three days before his criminal trial begins, and the day after former president Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan.
Hunter’s current wife Melissa Cohen and son Beau were also present at Dover Air Force Base. National Review has reached out to the White House for comment.
The president and his son visited the late Beau Biden’s grave and went to Mass together on Thursday to commemorate the ninth anniversary of Beau’s untimely death from brain cancer. They attended Mass at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware.
Joe Biden’s latest appearances with his son come after his visit to daughter-in-law Hallie Biden on Sunday, a key witnesses in Hunter’s upcoming gun trial. Hallie Biden is Beau Biden’s widow and Hunter’s ex-girlfriend, who notoriously threw out the firearm at the center of Hunter’s gun trial.
Hallie will be able to testify about Hunter Biden’s drug usage at the time of the gun purchase, which took place during their on-again, off-again relationship, court filings show. She and Hunter Biden began seeing each other after Beau’s death, and their affair contributed to Hunter’s divorce from ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, another witnesses at the upcoming trial.
The White House said Hallie and Joe Biden did not discuss the trial, rather they came together to mourn the ninth anniversary of Beau Biden’s death. He died of brain cancer in May 2015 at the age of 46.
Last week, Hunter appeared at a state dinner for the president of Kenya, and Attorney General Merrick Garland was also on the dinner’s guest list. Garland appointed special counsel David Weiss last summer to continue the Hunter Biden investigation after Weiss lead the case for years as U.S. Attorney for Delaware, a position Weiss still holds.
Weiss’s investigation in the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office was marred by detailed allegations of misconduct brought forward by two veteran IRS agents last year.
Hunter is facing three felony gun charges over a firearm purchase he made in October 2018 while he battled drug addiction. Weiss and his team are prosecuting Biden for allegedly lying about his drug addiction on gun purchase forms and allegedly possessing the firearm while he was addicted to controlled substances.
If convicted, Hunter Biden faces a maximum of 25 years in prison. His attorneys have signaled they will use the Second Amendment to defend their client and dispute whether Biden was a drug addict at the exact moment of his firearm purchase.
Judge Maryellen Noreika granted last week the prosecution’s motion to prevent the defense from arguing the government must show Hunter was a drug addict on the day of the firearm purchase, a win for the prosecution.
Earlier this week, Biden’s latest attempts have his gun charges thrown out failed, ensuring the gun trial will take place as scheduled.
The gun trial begins on Monday in Delaware federal court.