I read online this morning that President Biden was asked in Paris yesterday if he will pardon Hunter if he is convicted by jury for answering No, on October 2, 2018, to:
Alcohol Tax & Firearms (ATF) Form 4473Section 3: Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?
President Biden answered that he would not pardon Hunter if he is convicted, and when asked about Donald Trump being convicted in New York City, President Biden said Trump got a fair trial and the jury convicted him.
I read online yesterday that Hunter bought the gun on October 2, 2018, after he came out of 11 days of drug rehab, and that’s why he answered No on the form.
I read online this morning that Hunter claimed he got clean in 2019, and has been clean ever since.
Excerpts from a BBC News article yesterday:
Hallie Biden, who is also the widow of the defendant's late brother Beau, said she had discovered the revolver amid piles of clothes and litter in the glove compartment of Hunter Biden's truck.
Ms Biden, 50, also told the court she was "embarrassed and ashamed" to have started smoking crack cocaine herself after Mr Biden, 54, introduced her to the drug.
In often emotional, detailed testimony, she spoke of the pair's "volatile" and "off-on" relationship, as well as their struggles with drug use and agonising battles to recover.
Concerned after seeing Mr Biden looking "exhausted" and fearing he could have relapsed into crack use, Ms Biden told jurors she had searched his truck early on the morning of 23 October 2018 - something she had frequently done.
There, among piles of clothes and garbage, she had found "remnants" of crack cocaine as well as drug paraphernalia.
“Oh, and the gun, obviously," she added.
Almost instantly, she recalled, panic set in.
"I didn't want him to hurt himself, and I didn't want my kids to find it and hurt themselves," the mother-of-two said.
"I was afraid to kind of touch it. I didn't know it was loaded," Ms Biden added.
Fearful, she wrapped the .38 calibre Colt Cobra revolver into a leather pouch, stuffed it into a purple "little gift shopping bag" and drove to a nearby grocery store, where she threw it in a rubbish bin.
"I realise it was a stupid idea now," she said. "But I was panicking."
Initially, she did not plan to tell Mr Biden about what she had done. But when he woke up that morning, he realised it was missing.
"Did you take that from me Hallie," read one angry text shown to jurors. "You really need to help me think right now, Hallie. This is very serious."
At his urging, she returned to the store to find the gun but was unable to. She then filed a police report.
"I'll take the blame," she texted him from the scene. "I don't want to live like this."
Ms Biden also told the court that she had not see Mr Biden use crack cocaine in the days leading up to him buying the gun and her disposing of it.
Ms Biden testified that she had stopped using the drug in August 2018, but that he had continued to use.
The prosecutor asked on Thursday about a text message Hunter Biden had sent to Ms Biden the day after he bought the gun, saying he was waiting for a dealer named Mookie.
She told the court that had meant "he was buying crack cocaine".
Two days after the gun purchase, he texted Ms Biden that he was "sleeping on a car smoking crack".
The series of texts also included several emotional messages from Ms Biden in which she pleaded with him to get sober.
"I'm afraid you're going to die," one message read.
The defendant's lawyers explained the texts by suggesting their client had been lying about drug use to avoid seeing Hallie Biden - noting that she had had no way of knowing what he was actually doing at the time.
During cross-examination, Ms Biden confirmed she had not seen him using drugs around this time.
Abbe Lowell, Mr Biden's attorney, asked her whether the request to "help me get sober" could have also referred to alcohol - to which she agreed.
The prosecution's case, however, rests on convincing jurors that he was an addict.
Ms Biden's testimony was followed by Millard Greer, a former Delaware State Police lieutenant who recovered the weapon, as well as Edward Banner, an 80-year-old pensioner who found the weapon while looking for recyclables in the grocery store's bins.
The prosecution is expected to call two more witnesses, including an FBI expert and a DEA agent, before resting its case.
After reading that, I wondered if Abbe Lowell ever had up close and personal dealings with drug addicts, for whom sober means not using drugs, just as for alcoholics, sober means not using alcohol? Or, was Lowell simply depraved?
I will now tell how I got to know drug addicts up close and personal.
In 2003, I became infected with awful skin abscesses caused by Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) flesh-eating bacteria, which was common in Key West.
I was homeless, living in a tent in the wetlands near the Key West airport. I knew I could no longer live that way and survive, and I entered a halfway program offered by Florida Keys Outreach Coalition (FKOC), which provided room and board to anyone in need who could pass an alcohol/drug pee screen.
To get into FKOC, I had to pass an alcohol and narcotics urine screen. FKOC clients were given random alcohol and narcotics urine screens, and if they flunked a screen, they were booted out immediately, regardless of time of day or night or weather conditions. FKOC clients were required to attend 12 Step meetings daily, and to get the person running a meeting to sign an attendance sheet that we were there on such and such date and time.
Anchors Away on Whitehead Street was the Alcoholics Anonymous chapter house, and a room was provided for Narcotics Anonymous meetings. I attended AA meetings, and learned that when people spoke, they said, “Hi, I’m So and So, I’m an alcoholic.” When I spoke, I said, "Hi, I’m Sloan.”
When I started attending meetings at Anchors Away, the angels who had been hard on my case since early 1987, took me through the 12 Steps and it was no damn fun, and there was nothing I could do about it, and that is how I learned the 12 Steps are a true spiritual path for anyone, addict or not- if God, or an angel of God, gets involved. If that doesn’t happen, the alcoholic relies on himself and his sponsor and regularly attends AA meetings to try to stay sober.
In an AA meeting, I told about how God was taking me throuugh the 12 Steps and it was no fun, and I told about a dream that had really shook me up. After the meeting, an old timer walked over to me and said he liked what I had said and there was going to be a meeting of old timers and would I like to attend? I said, yes. He asked who was my sponsor? I said, God. He gave me the look, and said I hadn’t learned anything in these walls. I said, actually, I had learned quite a lot, and I had read The Big Book, by Bob and Bill, and I had read all of the stuff on the walls, and there is nothing in any of it about having a human sponsor, and the Twelve Steps plainly say God is the sponsor. The old timer turned and walked away, and I did not get invited to the old timers meeting.
I shifted to attending NA meetings, where people who spoke said, “Hi, I’m So and So, I’m an addict. After attending a few NA meetings, I felt the NA people were far more tuned in and rigorous about their predicament than were the AA people, who did not view themselves as addicts or alcohol as a drug. The NA people viewed alcohol as a drug and alcoholics as addicts.
Narcotics Anonymous Twelve Steps
We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Alcohol Tax & Firearms (ATF) Form 4473
Section 3: Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?
I wonder if Hunter Biden’s defense team puts him on the witness stand to testify to his state of mind when he bought the gun and that he was not using illegal drugs at that point in time?
If Hunter testifies, the prosecution can ask if he learned in drug rehab that he is a drug addict for the rest of his life?
The prosecution can ask Hunter if the rehab people told him to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings daily after he got out of rehab?
The prosecution can ask Hunter if he attended NA meetings after he left rehab, before he bought the gun, and if so, how many NA meetings did he attend, and where did he attend those meetings?
The prosecution can ask Hunter if he answered No on ATF form 4437 not knowing when he would start using again?
The prosecution can ask Hunter how long was it after he bought the gun that he started using again?
The prosecution can ask Hunter if he did not claim he got clean in 2019?
The prosecution can ask Hunter about texts to his girlfriend, Haile Biden, who was his deceased brother Beau's widow, in which he said he was going to see his drug dealer after he bought the gun.
The prosecution can ask Hunter if he told the rehab people he was going to buy a gun after he left rehab?
The prosecution can put NA old timers on the witness stand, as expert witnesses, and ask them what getting sober means to them, and they will say not using drugs, including alcohol.
The prosecution can ask NA old timers if drug users can be trusted to tell the truth, and it is a steep climb for recovering drug addicts to tell the truth, and the NA old timer experts will answer, Yes.
The prosecution can ask NA old timers expert witnesses if addiction is a choice, and they will say, Yes, because any drug user can choose to seek help, go into rehab, get educated in rehab about what being an addict really is all about, and leave rehab determined to stay clean, be different, start a new life, and attend NA meetings, or go back to drugging.
The prosecution can ask NA old timer witnesses what they think about Hunter buying a gun right after he got out of 11 days of rehab, and he didn’t tell anyone he bought the gun? I can imagine NA old timers saying that sends cold chills up and down their spines.
If I were a juror, I would be freaked out that Hunter bought a gun right after he got out of rehab, and he didn’t tell anyone he bought the gun.
If I were a juror, I would think President Biden and his family had moral and patriotic obligations to be good role models for all Americans, especially American children, and Hunter’s girlfriend ditched the gun where even a child could find it, and the thought of voting to acquit Hunter sends cold chills up and down my spine.
If the jury convicts Hunter, it falls on the presiding US District Court judge to impose sentence.
If this old lawyer who clerked for a US District Court judge, who presided over every criminal prosecution in Alabama, were the judge in Hunter's case, I would ask him if he agrees with the jury’s verdict? If he says, No, I give him a prison sentence in accord with the Federal Court Sentencing Guidelines.
If Hunter says, Yes, I give him a suspended sentence and put him on probation and require he attend AA meetings every day for 3 years; he furnishes proof of that each month to his probation officer; he passes random drug screens for three years, the timing and place determined by his probation officer; and if he violates his probation, he goes to a federal prison for 3 years.
It will be on a US Circuit Court of Appeals to agree or overrule me.
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