Fresh on the heels of Donald Trump’s New York business records trial wrapping up with 24 felony convictions, First Son Hunter Biden has his own criminal trial to contend with.
Biden was indicted by a federal grand jury in September on three felony gun charges after his sweetheart plea deal related to misdemeanor tax charges spectacularly fell apart last summer.
The trial began with jury selection on Monday, and Megyn was joined by Emily Jashinsky, D.C. correspondent for Unherd, and Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of The Washington Free Beacon, to discuss the differences between Trump and Biden’s cases and how politics are at play.
The Jury
In September, Special Counsel David Weiss indicted Biden on a trio of felony counts in connection with a gun he purchased in 2018. “There are three felonies that accuse him of lying to get the gun in the first two charges and then actually illegally possessing the gun in the third charge,” Megyn explained.
The charges center around a revolver he purchased from a Delaware gun shop and owned for about 11 days in October 2018. He was struggling with a cocaine addiction at the time, but he claimed to not be using or addicted to any illegal drugs on government forms.
The case is being tried in Delaware because that is where he bought the gun. And while this is a federal case and the judge overseeing it – U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika – is a Trump-appointee, Megyn said the First State is Biden land.
“It’s a Delaware jury… and the Bidens are beloved there. They are just rockstars throughout the tiny state of Delaware,” Megyn explained. “Hunter Biden is going to get a jury of all Delawareans, which is good for him – unlike Trump getting a whole jury of New Yorkers.”
In Johnson’s view, any bias should be offset by the simplicity of the case. “It is different from the Trump case in that the gun crime is really cut and dry, and it’s clear he did,” she said. “I think for Trump… the jury pool was important because the crime was difficult to understand. A lot of it was a matter of interpretation and having a hostile jury hurt him.”
The Defense Strategy
Based on what we have heard from defense so far, it appears as though Biden is going to argue that he believed he was clean when he filled out the forms. “We expect him to take issue with the form… and may try to argue: ‘At the moment I filled out that form, I had gone to rehab. And so, for that two hour period, I was not an addict or an illegal drug user.'”
Jashinsky expects to see a defense strategy that tugs at the heartstrings. “Hunter Biden has a great legal team,” she said. “They are going to try to talk about addiction issues… they are trying to play the sympathy card and the emotion card, they are going to have the president himself coming out and saying what he’s going to say. With a Delaware jury, I actually feel like there might be a chance you could muddy the waters.”
For that reason, Megyn said the cases of Trump and Biden might not be that different. “We’ll listen to the defense, but, on paper… he [seems] guilty,” she concluded. “He is toast or should be, but we are kind of looking at a similar situation to the one Trump faced in that – if politics drives the verdict – he actually could get acquitted even though he should be convicted.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Jashinsky and Johnson by tuning in to episode 808 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.