乔·拜登总统的儿子亨特·拜登被特别顾问魏红星以持枪重罪起诉。
指控带来了新的法律压力最近几个月，拜登与检察官达成的认罪协议破裂。
年轻的拜登被指控两项与购买枪支时的虚假陈述有关的指控，以及第三项在吸毒时非法获得枪支的指控。两项作出虚假陈述的罪名分别被判处最高10年和5年的徒刑，而藏毒罪被判处最高10年徒刑。
检察官们花了数年时间仔细审查亨特·拜登的商业努力和个人生活认罪协议双方在6月份达成了协议，这将允许他对两项轻罪税收罪行认罪，并进入审前转移计划，以避免对重罪枪支指控的起诉。
但是那笔交易分崩离析在7月份的一次法庭听证会上，美国法官Maryellen Noreika对协议的结构表示担忧，并质疑豁免协议的范围，暴露了双方之间的分歧。
几周后，8月11日，司法部长梅里克·加兰将最初由时任总统唐纳德·特朗普任命的韦斯提升为特别顾问授予他更广泛的权力，在全国任何地区对亨特·拜登提出指控。
检察官随后告知法庭，新一轮谈判已经陷入“僵局”，亨特·拜登的律师指责韦斯的办公室“违背”了他们的协议。
2023年6月22日，美国总统乔·拜登在白宫为印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪举行的官方国宴上，亨特·拜登与一个人交谈。
伊丽莎白·弗兰茨/路透社
周四的指控不太可能是最后一次。韦斯还撤销了在特拉华州的两项轻罪税收指控，打算将它们带到加利福尼亚州和华盛顿特区——所谓的不当行为发生的地点。检察官没有提供这些指控的时间表。
亨特·拜登的法律团队坚持认为，由检察官签署的审前分流协议仍然有效。维斯的团队表示，缓刑监督官从未签署它，使其无效。
亨特·拜登律师阿贝·洛厄尔在一份声明中说:“正如所料，检察官在六周前对这起案件进行了五年的调查后，今天提出了他们认为不合理的指控。”。“我们认为，检察官与拜登先生达成的协议，几个联邦法院最近做出的该法令违宪的裁决，以及他没有违反该法律的事实，都禁止了这些指控，我们计划在法庭上展示所有这些。”
韦斯起诉书中描述的行为可以追溯到2018年10月，当时亨特·拜登购买了一把枪，尽管后来在他的回忆录《美丽的事物》中承认，他当时吸毒成瘾。
根据检察官的说法，拜登获得了一支柯尔特眼镜蛇38SPL左轮手枪，并在联邦表格上谎报了自己的吸毒情况。在检察官提交的文件中，作为那项注定失败的认罪协议的一部分，检察官写道，亨特·拜登几乎每天都在滥用快克可卡因。
尽管法规很明确——在枪支申请表上撒谎或作为吸毒者拥有枪支都是犯罪——但法律专家表示，检察官可能会面临阻力。
新奥尔良的一家联邦上诉法院最近裁定，仅仅使用毒品不应自动阻止某人获得枪支。该裁决没有约束力，因为第五巡回法院不包括特拉华州。
但洛厄尔最近暗示，这可以为他辩护。
“如果人们注意的话，唯一改变的法律(自认罪协议解除以来)是联邦系统中的一个上诉法院，该法院称该法令违宪，”Lowell本月早些时候在MSNBC的一次采访中说。
洛厄尔还声称，特拉华州的联邦检察官从未将这一特定法规作为一项“独立”的罪行，而不是将其附加到一项附加指控上。
尽管亨特·拜登的未来仍不确定，但韦斯的指控的一个直接影响是显而易见的:老拜登将在2024年选举季再次被他儿子的法律诉讼所困扰。
总统的政敌抓住亨特的海外商业交易，指控拜登全家腐败，尽管迄今没有发现明确的证据表明乔·拜登从他儿子的工作中受益或有意义地支持他的工作。
与此同时，在国会山，众议院议长凯文·麦卡锡周二表示他会发起弹劾调查指控拜登总统涉嫌参与他儿子的权钱交易。白宫称此举是“最糟糕的极端政治”，并补充说“总统没有做错任何事。”
“今天的指控是一个非常小的开始，但除非美国司法部长韦斯调查所有参与欺诈计划和以权谋私的人，否则很明显，拜登总统的DOJ正在保护亨特·拜登和这个大家伙，”詹姆斯·卡莫(James Comer)在给美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)的一份声明中说，他指的是对亨特·拜登和他父亲未经证实的指控。
Hunter Biden indicted by special counsel on felony gun charges
President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has been indicted by special counsel David Weiss on felony gun charges.
The charges bringrenewed legal pressureon the younger Biden after a plea agreement he struck with prosecutors imploded in recent months.
The younger Biden has been charged with two counts related to false statements in purchasing the firearm and a third count of illegally obtaining a firearm while addicted to drugs. The two counts of making false statements carry sentences of up to 10 years and five years, respectively, while the possession charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years.
Prosecutors have spent years scrutinizing Hunter Biden's business endeavors and personal life -- a probe that appeared to culminate in aplea agreementthe two sides struck in June, which would have allowed him to plead guilty to a pair of misdemeanor tax offenses and enter into a pretrial diversion program to avoid prosecution on a felony gun charge.
But that dealfell apartduring a court hearing in July after U.S. Judge Maryellen Noreika expressed concern over the structure of the agreement and questioned the breadth of an immunity deal, exposing fissures between the two parties.
Weeks later, on Aug. 11, Attorney General Merrick Garlandelevated Weiss, who was originally appointed by then-President Donald Trump, to special counsel, granting him broader authority to press charges against Hunter Biden in any district in the country.
Prosecutors subsequently informed the court that a new round of negotiations had reached "an impasse," and attorneys for Hunter Biden accused Weiss' office of "reneging" on their agreement.
Thursday's charge is unlikely to be the last. Weiss also withdrew the two misdemeanor tax charges in Delaware with the intention of bringing them in California and Washington, D.C. -- the venues where the alleged misconduct occurred. Prosecutors have not offered a timeline for those charges.
Hunter Biden's legal team maintains that the pretrial diversion agreement, which was signed by prosecutors, remains in effect. Weiss' team said the probation officer never signed it, rendering it null and void.
"As expected, prosecutors filed charges today that they deemed were not warranted just six weeks ago following a five-year investigation into this case," said Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell in a statement. "We believe these charges are barred by the agreement the prosecutors made with Mr. Biden, the recent rulings by several federal courts that this statute is unconstitutional, and the facts that he did not violate that law, and we plan to demonstrate all of that in court."
The conduct described in Weiss' indictment dates back 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.
According to prosecutors, Biden obtained a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver and lied on a federal form about his drug use. In documents filed by prosecutors as part of that ill-fated plea deal, prosecutors wrote that Hunter Biden abused crack cocaine on a near-daily basis.
And while the statute 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.
But Lowell recently suggested that it could play into his defense.
"If people have paid attention, the only law that's changed [since the plea deal dissolved] has been a court of appeals in the federal system that has called that statute unconstitutional," Lowell said earlier this month in an interview on MSNBC.
Lowell also claimed that federal prosecutors in Delaware have never used this particular statute as a "standalone" crime, without attaching it to an additional charge.
While Hunter Biden's future remains uncertain, one immediate implication of Weiss' charge is clear: the elder Biden will head into the 2024 election season once again dogged by his son's legal tribulations.
The president's political foes have latched onto Hunter's overseas business dealings to level allegations depicting the entire Biden family as corrupt, despite uncovering no clear evidence to date indicating that Joe Biden profited from or meaningfully endorsed his son's work.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday said he wouldinitiate an impeachment inquiryagainst President Biden over his alleged role in his son's influence-peddling. The White House has called the move "extreme politics at its worst," adding that "the president hasn't done anything wrong."
"Today's charges are a very small start, but unless U.S. Attorney Weiss investigates everyone involved in the fraud schemes and influence peddling, it will be clear President Biden's DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden and the big guy," James Comer, one of the lead committee chairs now overseeing Republicans'' impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, said in a statement to ABC News, referencing unproven allegations against Hunter Biden and his father.
