The federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s gun case officially closed the book on it following President Biden’s pardon of his son, but stopped short of fully dismissing the charges.
In a brief order, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika said she was terminating all further proceedings in the case, including the sentencing that was scheduled for next week in Wilmington, Delaware.
However, Judge Noreika did not dismiss the case outright, a request made earlier this week by Hunter Biden’s legal team in an effort to wipe the slate clean. Instead, her four-page order simply ended the proceedings.
Hunter Biden is also set to be sentenced this month on tax evasion charges, also covered by the pardon. District Judge Mark Scarsi, overseeing that case, hasn’t announced whether he will terminate those proceedings.
On the Delaware gun charges, Hunter Biden was facing a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. He likely would have received far less because he’s a first-time offender.
In June, a federal jury in Wilmington found Hunter Biden guilty on three charges stemming from purchasing a firearm while in the throes of a crack addiction. While buying a Colt revolver in 2018, Hunter Biden checked “no” on a federal firearm purchase form that asked whether he was addicted to illegal drugs.
The jury convicted him after only a few hours of deliberation.
Hunter BIden’s legal team had pushed for the case to be fully dismissed, a move opposed by special counsel David Weiss, who had brought the charges in both the gun and cases cases.
Mr. Weiss suggested in a filing Monday that the court should end the proceedings and close the case by reflecting that a pardon was the final resolution, a procedural difference. He said leaving the pardon as the final disposition would not absolve Hunter Biden of his guilt or suggest the prosecution was flawed.
“The government does not challenge that the defendant has been the recipient of an act of mercy. But that does not mean the grand jury’s decision to charge him, based on a finding of probable cause, should be wiped away as if it never occurred,” Mr. Weiss wrote.
The president absolved Hunter Biden from the consequences of the gun and tax charges Sunday night with his pardon. The executive clemency grants Hunter Biden a “full and unconditional pardon” dating back to January 2014 and includes possible crimes the first son may have committed but for which he had not been charged.
In a statement announcing the pardon, the president called the charges against his son “a miscarriage of justice” and insisted “raw politics” infected his son’s case.
Mr. Weiss disputed any assertion that politics influenced his prosecution. In a court filing Monday, Mr. Weiss called the claims ‘“baseless.”
“There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case,” he wrote.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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