We are calling the Black Community to attention. They should be outraged for what has and is happening to the Cocaine Hunter. POTUS and his son have committed crimes that if a member of the Black Community committed the same would be in jail for life. The key would have been thrown away. So let’s see what the charges were.
Much else is curious about this latest Biden misadventure. Why, for example, did the Secret Service’s office in Wilmington, Del., reportedly get involved? Yes, that would be the same agency that was then providing protection for former Vice President Joe Biden as he was planning his 2020 presidential bid.
The Secret Service has nothing to do with firearms background checks (the bailiwick of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), or with investigating misplaced guns (that’s the local cops’ job). Why would Secret Service agents try to get the gun dealer to surrender the paperwork from Hunter’s purchase?
Congress ought to be investigating — clearly, if a Republican were involved, Democrats would be in whirling dervish mode and the media would be swarming.
But that aside, there is a reason many “lie and try” cases do not get prosecuted: The applicant does not get the gun. Often, what is concealed is a prior conviction. The authorities discover it in reviewing the background check, and the purchase never goes through.
Those cases ought to be prosecuted more often, but it’s not true that charges are never filed. Even if it were true, this is not that situation. Biden got the gun and, predictably, lost it. That’s a case that ought to be charged 10 times out of 10.
Andrew C. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor and contributing editor at National Review.
Hunter Biden’s plea agreement to misdemeanor tax offenses allows him to avoid federal felony charges for lying on a background check form when he purchased a firearm. Hunter Biden was an illegal user of crack cocaine at the time, which makes him ineligible to legally purchase or possess a firearm. The punishment for the felony offense of lying on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) Form 4473 is up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The firearm Hunter Biden purchased was later disposed of in a public trash can.
Charge One, lied when filing an application to purchase a firearm. See below.
Form 4473 — the Firearm Transaction Record — is a six-page document that must be filled out whenever someone buys a firearm from a licensed firearm dealer. It asks questions including whether the buyer is addicted to drugs, and is the actual buyer of the firearm. A tweet by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) Houston office said that lying on the form is a “federal violation and can lead to severe penalties and jail time.” A swarm of Twitter users asked why the bureau didn’t charge Hunter Biden, the president’s son, for allegedly lying on Form 4473 when he purchased a handgun in October 2018, the Washington Post reports. The controversy prompted the newspaper to request statistics from the Justice Department to determine whether someone falsely filling out the form face much a risk of prosecution. The answer? They don’t. The statistics are relevant as Congress discusses how to strengthen gun laws after high-profile mass shootings. They are a prime illustration of how existing laws are not always rigorously or consistently enforced.
Lying on the form is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. For being a user of unlawful drugs in possession of a firearm, the punishment is up to five years. The odds of being charged for lying on the form are virtually nonexistent. In the 2019 fiscal year, when Hunter Biden purchased his gun, federal prosecutors received 478 referrals for lying on Form 4473 — and filed just 298 cases. The numbers were roughly similar for fiscal 2020. At issue is when Biden answered “no” on the question that asks about unlawful drug use and addiction when purchasing a gun. Biden had been discharged five years earlier from the Navy Reserve for drug use and based on his 2021 memoir, he was actively using crack cocaine in the year he bought the gun. The data do not show how many people might have been prosecuted for falsely answering the question about active drug use. A 1990 Justice Department study noted how difficult it was to bring cases against people who falsely answer questions on the form, especially because there is no paper trail for drug abusers like there is for felons.
So the bottom line here is the Cocaine Hunter lied when he filled out an application to purchase a firearm, but in the end he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. No jail time, record would be wiped clean. But there is more to the story here. Did he have a gun permit?