The Hunter Biden indictment, annotated

CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Kara Scannell and Hannah Rabinowitz note this is the first time in US history that the Justice Department has indicted the child of a sitting president.

Prosecutors have charged Hunter Biden with three crimes -- two counts for alleged false statements he made while purchasing the gun and a third count for possessing the gun while addicted to drugs.

Hunter Biden had previously reached a deal with Weiss to resolve the matter without charges, but that deal collapsed over the summer amid scrutiny from a federal judge and after a related tax deal unraveled. Read more.

Here is Form 4473 on the ATF’s website. The top of the form, CNN’s Zachary Wolf notes, includes this caution: “WARNING: The information you provide will be used to determine whether you are prohibited by Federal or State Law from receiving a firearm, or whether Federal or State Law prohibits the sale or disposition of a firearm to you. Certain violations of the Gun Control Act, 18 U.S.C. § 921 et. seq., are punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment and/or up to a $250,000 fine.”

Count One accuses Hunter Biden of lying on the ATF form when he bought the gun by falsely swearing that he wasn’t addicted to illegal drugs or using illegal drugs. It’s a crime to knowingly make a false statement to the federal government, Cohen notes.

Cohen, Scannell and Rabinowitz note that Hunter Biden’s gun-related legal troubles relate to a firearm he purchased in October 2018. While buying a Colt Cobra revolver at a Delaware gun shop, he lied on the federal form when he swore that he was not using, and was not addicted to, any illegal drugs -- even though he was struggling with crack cocaine addiction at the time of the purchase.

It’s a federal crime to lie on that ATF form or to possess a firearm as a drug user, Cohen, Scannell and Rabinowitz note. Prosecutors have previously said the statute of limitations for some of these offenses is set to expire in October.

Count Two accuses Hunter Biden of lying to the federally licensed gun dealer in Wilmington where he bought the gun. The alleged lie was related to the same sworn statement on the ATF form, Cohen notes.

Wolf notes that in a memoir, Biden detailed his drug addiction, including a relapse in 2018, the same year he bought the gun.

“I used my superpower -- finding crack anytime, anywhere,” he said, describing a trip to Los Angeles.

Count Three accuses Hunter Biden of illegally possessing the gun while using drugs or being addicted to drugs, which is a federal crime, Cohen notes. Biden possessed the gun for 11 days in 2018.

If convicted on all counts, Biden could theoretically face as much as 25 years in prison and fines of up to $750,000, according to court filings. However, defendants very rarely get the maximum penalty, especially in cases like these, involving nonviolent crimes and an alleged first-time offender.

Scannell reports that Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, issued a statement on his client’s indictment: “Hunter Biden possessing an unloaded gun for 11 days was not a threat to public safety, but a prosecutor, with all the power imaginable, bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice,” he said. Lowell added that he plans to fight the charges.

CNN’s Devan Cole and Tierney Sneed note that the gun possession law Hunter Biden is accused of breaking is already on shaky legal ground after an August ruling by an appeals court covering three southern states that declared the statute unconstitutional.

Last month, a New Orleans-based federal appeals court struck down the decades-old law, saying it violated the Second Amendment in a case concerning a man who was convicted under it in 2022.

“In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage,” Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote for the three-judge panel. “Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users.”

The ruling by the Fifth Circuit, which oversees Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, means that other defendants convicted under the law in those states could seek to bring new challenges to their convictions. At this time, it has no legal bearing on Hunter Biden’s case, which was brought in Delaware.

Cohen, Scannell and Rabinowitz note that Weiss has been leading the Hunter Biden investigation since late 2018. Over the years, his team investigated potential felony tax evasion, illegal foreign lobbying, money laundering and other matters, largely tied to Hunter Biden’s overseas business deals.

In addition to the gun case, Weiss is still weighing whether to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes. He said in a court filing last month that “a trial is now in order” on the tax offenses and that he “may bring tax charges” possibly in California or Washington, DC.