Will the Hunter Bidden prosecutors call Narcotics Anonymous old timers as expert witnesses?

 

    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 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?

    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.

    I knew from when I lived in Boulder, Colorado,1987-1995, where I had friends who attended AA and NA meetings, that the relapse rate rate was 95 percent, and I although they did not want to admit it, I was able to get a few old timers at Anchors Away to say that was accurate. I learned that FKOC had a high relapse rate, and its graduates had a high relapse rate. That was not FKOC’s fault, but was the nature of the addiction beast.

   It is from that background that I observe the prosecution of Hunter Biden for answering “No” to this this question:

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.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

America, no country for old men?

    My a friend Todd German down Key West way emailed me about yesterday’s post on Hunter Biden’s gun trial in federal court, in which I reported the gun was a .44 magnum and it was found by police officers in a trashcan in a poor neighborhood where Hunter had ditched it after he bought drugs from a drug dealer and he saw two cops show up, who wondered why he was in that neighborhood.

Hey Sloan, 

 

Wanted to reach out as some corrections are in order.  Not sure who your friend is but they aren’t looking at same facts as everyone else. 

 

The gun was .38-caliber Colt Cobra Special and Hunter didn’t throw it away, his girlfriend/sister-in-law did after she found it in his car.

There are countless articles confirming this as you note all over the news. 

I emailed him:

OMG!

Thanks. Todd

The gun caliber and how the gun was found were provided to me by someone who historically is reliable. 

Sloan

    My source mentioned both .38 calibre and .44 magnum made by Colt, and I thought my source meant Hunter’s gun was .44 magnum, and I said .44 magnum can stop a Peterbilt truck and a rhinoceros

    I took down the post and corrected it and its title, which had .44 magnum in it, and republished it as: Will President Biden pardon his son Hunter if he is convicted in federal court of fraudulently buying a.pistol?

    Over the years, I made factual mistakes in posts, which were my fault entirely, but nothing like the mistakes in yesterday’s post. 

    I was mortified. The internet and social media are full of spun and totally incorrect information. I wondered if it was time for me to set American politics aside? If American politics is no place for old men?

    No place for 81+ year old me.

    Joe Biden is 81.

    Donald Trump is 77.

    I see Joe Biden doing a lot of spinning and fact mangling in the news media.

    It’s gotten to where I don’t trust anything Trump says until proven otherwise.

    I can’t assign that to their advanced years, because I see the spinning and fact mangling happening on the right and on the left, on Facebook, in online forums, and in face to face conversations with people I know somewhat or even well.

    After receiving Todd’s email, I was glad the Angel of Death did not take me yet, because I really didn’t want to leave unattended the mess I had made.

    Todd and I ran many rivers together. I lived a good while in his home when I was homeless.

    He is a US Army Special Forces Combat Veteran. He is a Republican. He told me that he voted for Donald Trump in 2016. After the January 6, 2021 riot in the national Capitol, Todd told me that the rioters should have been shot dead, and I could quote him.

    Facebook terminated my Facebook account for posting that, and I opened a new Facebook account. Facebook rejected the messed up version of yesterday’s post, it violated their community standards - small favors:-).

    Yesterday, I saw news reports online that Trump said he never said Hillary should be locked up. In 2016, I saw a film clip of Trump at a MAGA rally, him and the MAGAs chanting, “Lock her up! Lock her up!” 

    In 2016, I said on my blog that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both should be locked up, in adjoining cells. I said Trump won because the Democrats ran the only candidate he could beat.

    In yesterday’s original and corrected post:

I heard that dirt Hillary Clintonshe had on the Bidens was how she got the Democrat nomination in 2016, before anyone knew about her dirt, and that, along with help from Julian Assange and Russian hackers and Vladimir Putin, is how Donald Trump got into the White House.

    I read several news reports yesterday of Trump saying if he wins in November his enemies will be prosecuted. 

    I read several news reports yesterday of witnesses for Trump in his various civil and criminal prosecutions against him being given raises or money.

    I view Trump as a cold-blooded predator, who preys on anything in front of him except his immediate family and current good friends.

    Alas, I have no use for Joe Biden, and I think Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is wacko. and last night I renewed my selfish offer to God: my life for the lives of Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

    Selfish, because I wake up each morning wishing the Lord had taken me in my sleep.

    Selfish, because I worry what it will be like for my children and their families if Trump gets back in the White House and his legions think they can do anything they want to do and he will pardon them.

    Selfish, because, I worry what it will be like for my children and their families if Trump loses in November and his enraged legions go gun-shooting ballistic crazy.

   Last night, my Birmingham area amiga Morticia texted me and we did another little jitterbug perfume waltz tango:

Morticia

If Hunter is found guilty and his daddy pardons him it will be bad. You know I can’t stand Trump and would like to see him get a long time at Rikers, but I think Hunter may have done as bad or actually worse! They both need to own up to their time.

Me

Hunter’s evil affects very few people, Trump is worse than Covid-19, he’s a plague. Lock them up in adjoining cells :-)

Morticia

Trump’s wanting the gag order lifted, I did not hear if a decision had been made. I hope the judge says no.

Me

I hope the judge gags Trump by incarcerating him.

Morticia

I am with you on that one. 

 

Morticia

Damnit, Georgia case paused indefinitely. I’m so sick of the Trump saga. Maybe the mother ship will come get all of us but them!

Me
The Georgia prosecutor screwed up that case all by her own pussy. 
Yes on mothership.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

Will President Biden pardon his son Hunter if he is convicted in federal court of fraudulently buying a.pistol?

    Yesterday began the federal court trial of Hunter Biden for not disclosing on a federal form when he purchased a .38 Colt Cobra Special pistol that he was an active drug addict. He got caught when his girlfriend/sister-in-law she found the gun in his car and reported it to law enforcement.

    Someone texted me:

In the texts on his cell phone, Hunter texts his drug dealer for 2&2 (2=crack cocaine and heroin, &2 means enough for Hunter and someone else). He has to clarify he wants east coast powder heroin and not Mexican black tar. There is no question that his phone was used to solicit and purchase drugs.

    I texted back:

No worries, his Daddy will pardon him if he’s convicted, straight out of Donald Trump’s play book? Daddy already should have said on national TV that he will not pardon Hunter if he is convicted. So, Daddy lays low until after the November election to pardon Hunter?     

    I was emailed this BBC article, which says nothing about Hunter’s texts to the drug dealer.

Jury seated in Hunter Biden's federal gun trial 

June 3, 2024
Bernd Debusmann Jr,
BBC News, Washington
Hunter Biden faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of the federal charges in Delaware.
With the strike of a judge's gavel in Delaware, Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, became the first child of a sitting president to be a criminal defendant. 
Prosecutors allege the younger Biden, 54, lied about his drug use on application forms when he purchased a handgun in 2018. 
Mr Biden has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Opening statements in the case are expected to begin Tuesday, after 12 jurors and four alternates were sworn in on Monday. 
If the jury finds him guilty of all three federal counts, Mr Biden could face up to 25 years in prison.
The trial - which comes as his father campaigns for re-election - is likely to see prosecutors delve into graphic details of Mr Biden's crack cocaine addiction, potentially providing fodder for the president's political foes.
President Biden has repeatedly declined to comment on the court case, but he said in a statement on the morning of the trial's start that he has "boundless love" and "confidence" in his son. 
"Hunter's resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us," the elder Biden said. 
Here's what we know about the case. 
What are the charges? 
Mr Biden is facing three federal charges in the case: two counts of making false statements and one count of illegal gun possession. 
The charges all relate to his purchase of a revolver at a Delaware gun store in October 2018, which he kept for about 11 days. 
By Mr Biden's own admission, he was deep in the throes of a "full blown addiction" to crack cocaine at the time.
The two false statement charges stem from allegations that he lied about his drug use on a federally-mandated form when he purchased the weapon. 
Specifically, prosecutors allege that he falsely claimed that he was "not an unlawful user of and addicted to any stimulant narcotic drug" when he purchased a Colt Cobra Special revolver. 
The third count is related to his possession of a firearm while alleged to have been a drug user. 
The gun was discarded and discovered at a grocery store in Greenville, Delaware, prompting an investigation that ultimately led investigators back to the forms. 
How strong is the evidence? 
To convict Mr Biden, prosecutors will have to convince jurors that he knowingly made false statements on the form in a bid to deceive the store that sold him the pistol. 
Additionally, they will have to prove that Mr Biden was a drug user or addicted to drugs, and took possession of the gun despite knowing as much. 
US District Judge Maryellen Noreika has already ruled that defence lawyers cannot argue that the prosecution can only get a guilty verdict by proving Mr Biden was using drugs on the day he bought the weapon.
Instead, in a pre-trial hearing, the judge agreed with prosecutors' argument that they need only prove that "unlawful use (had) occurred recently enough to indicate that the individual (was) actively engaged in such conduct". 
In court filings made ahead of the trial's start, prosecutors suggested that they would rely, in part, on deeply personal text messages and other communications made while Mr Biden was in the throes of addiction. 
In one such text message cited in court documents, Mr Biden refers to himself as a "liar and a thief and a blame and a user and I'm delusional and an addict unlike beyond and above all other addicts that you know". 
The prosecution is also expected to rely on the testimonies of witnesses including ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and Mr Biden's ex-partner Hallie Biden - who is also the widow of Mr Biden's brother Beau.
Prosecutors will also be able to point to Mr Biden's own 2021 memoir, in which he detailed his experiences as a drug user who was "up twenty-four hours a day, smoking every 15 minutes, seven days a week".
"All my energy revolved around smoking drugs and making arrangements to buy drugs - feeding the beast," he wrote in the book. 
Hunter Biden has repeatedly accused Republicans of using his addiction and recovery to "embarrass" and attack his father
While Mr Biden has himself been quiet about the trial, legal documents filed by his lawyers suggest that they will focus on how much Mr Biden was aware of his addiction at the end of the purchase, and on the quality of the evidence itself. 
His primary attorney, Abbe Lowell, unsuccessfully sought permission from the court to call upon an expert witness who can testify about an addict's understanding of their substance abuse issues. 
In an interview with the BBC after Mr Biden's not guilty plea, South Texas College of Law Professor Dru Stevenson said that charges for illegal gun possession usually result in a "slam dunk case". 
"I don't think there's any question that [Mr Biden] will be convicted."
The third charge, regarding Mr Biden's alleged possession of a firearm while a drug user, is considered unusual, as it can be hard to prove someone is a drug user and has a gun. 
"It's just really rare that they would go after someone and prosecute them for this," Prof Stevenson said. "But this is a high-profile person and there's been members of Congress demanding he be prosecuted."
Among the most prominent pieces of evidence at the trial is likely to be the information on Mr Biden's infamous laptop, which has been the focus of intense media speculation and focus from conservative news outlets. 
The laptop has also been at the centre of unproven theories linking Mr Biden and his father to corruption, which they both deny. 
Mr Biden's own lawyers have argued that the computer was tampered with before it fell into the hands of investigators. 
The special counsel appointed to oversee the probes into Hunter Biden, David Weiss, has said that the tampering argument is a "conspiracy theory" with "no supporting evidence." 
In a May filing, prosecutors wrote that the laptop contained "significant evidence" of Mr Biden's guilt.
Could he go to prison if convicted? 
The two false statement charges each carry a maximum sentence of up to 10 years, while the third count is punishable by up to five years - meaning that Mr Biden could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. 
Actual sentences for federal crimes, however, are typically less than the maximum penalties specified by law. 
If Mr Biden is convicted, the judge in the case will ultimately determine the sentence after considering sentencing guidelines and a variety of other legal factors. 
Hunter Biden's other charges
In addition to the gun charges in Delaware, Mr Biden is facing separate federal charges in California over allegations that he evaded a tax assessment, failed to properly file and pay taxes and filed a fraudulent tax return. Several months after the spectacular collapse of a plea deal that would address both sets of charges last year, Mr Biden also pleaded not guilty to the tax charges.

    This old lawyer, who once clerked for a US District Judge that presided over every federal prosecution in north Alabama, wonders why Hunter did not make a plea deal in the gun case? I found this BBC article on the federal tax evasion case, which perhaps explains why no plea deal was offered to Hunter in the federal gun case? The same US District Judge presides over both federal cases.

Hunter Biden's plea deal collapsed. What happens now?
27 July 2023
By Anthony Zurcher,
North America correspondent, 
@awzurcher
Reuters
Hunter Biden's deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to two misdemeanour tax evasion charges and defer punishment for lying on a gun license application collapsed in dramatic fashion in a Delaware federal courtroom on Wednesday.
As a room full of reporters watched, the presiding judge, Maryellen Noreika, questioned the assembled lawyers about details of the agreement, revealing that the federal team led by David Weiss, the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney in Delaware who is in charge of the Biden investigation, and Mr Biden's lawyers, had very different views on what it contained.
Eventually, Mr Biden's side agreed to the prosecution's view - but that proved to be just the first stumbling block. The judge then questioned the gun deal - in which no charges would be filed if Mr Biden stayed out of legal trouble and did not attempt to purchase firearms for two years. 
The agreement made Ms Noreika, rather than the justice department, the arbiter of whether Mr Biden was keeping his end of the agreement, a provision she found to be of questionable legality. 
After she told the lawyers she could not decide the matter without further review, Mr Biden pleaded not guilty to the two tax charges and the judge told the sides they would have 30 days to reach a new agreement that addressed her concerns.
"You are all saying, 'Just rubber stamp the agreement'," Ms Noreika told the lawyers. "I'm not in a position to accept or reject it. I need to defer."
In the meantime, there are more questions than there are answers.
What did the prosecution and defence lawyers disagree about?
At the heart of Wednesday's dispute was exactly how much immunity from future prosecution the plea deal will give Hunter Biden. Defence attorneys said they understood that the agreement would protect their client from any future indictments by federal prosecutors over his business dealings.
Federal prosecutors disagreed, telling the judge the plea agreement only covered tax crimes and Mr Biden's false claim he was not a drug addict when he applied for a 2018 gun license.
It's typical for defence attorneys to press for the broadest level of protection for their clients when entering plea negotiations. Prosecutors, on the other hand, tend to want to keep their options open. These details are usually hammered out well ahead of a courtroom appearance, however.
The Biden team has a particular interest in limiting the justice department's range of future options, both in new prosecutions and determining violations of the gun agreement, to prevent a Republican president from reopening the inquiry in 2025.
In the end, the two sides agreed that Mr Biden would be protected from further tax and gun charges stemming from activities that took place between 2014 and 2019.
When asked by congressional investigators, Mr Weiss and federal prosecutors have said that their investigations are "ongoing" despite the plea deal. 
During their Wednesday court appearance, Judge Noreika specifically asked the prosecution team about whether the plea deal would prevent a prosecution for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara) - a federal law that requires individuals who are engaging in political advocacy on behalf of foreign governments, businesses or nationals to inform the federal government of their activities.
The prosecutors said it did not. 
There has been widespread speculation that Mr Weiss's team has been looking into possible Fara violations, given that Mr Biden had frequent contacts with Chinese and Ukrainian individuals and businesses as part of his international business dealings.
While the prosecutors did not confirm this was an ongoing area of investigation, the judge's questions will further fuel speculation.
Fara prosecutions were rare until recent years and typically come through plea deals and not trials.
Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort pleaded guilty to a Fara charge in 2019, as did former Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy in 2020. Both were subsequently pardoned by Mr Trump.
What happens next in the case?
The clock is ticking on the 30-day deadline for prosecutors and Mr Biden's lawyers to reach a plea agreement that won't collapse when it reaches the courtroom. 
If they can't, the judge could set a trial date for the two misdemeanour tax violations the presidential son is already facing - and prosecutors could add more serious criminal violations to the charge sheet.
If a new deal is reached, Judge Noreika will have to approve it - and then issue a sentence. While the prosecutors had recommended parole and no jail time as part of the previous deal, the judge will make her own determination as to the appropriate punishment.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans, who are conducting their own investigation of Mr Biden's business activities will continue their inquiries. 
They had actively opposed the previous plea agreement, which they considered too lenient for Mr Biden.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer has said that committee Republicans believe that President Biden may be more closely tied to Hunter Biden's businesses than was previously disclosed.
Mr Weiss had promised to testify to Congress sometime after August to explain the plea deal and his prosecutorial decisions, but that becomes less likely if his office takes Mr Biden to trial on tax charges or is actively investigating other possible criminal violations.  

    The presiding federal judge was appointed by President Donald Trump and is being considered for appointment to a US Circuit Court of Appeals by President Joe Biden. 

    From Wikipedia:

 

Maryellen Noreika (born July 12, 1966) is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2018 as a U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.
Biography
Noreika was born in 1966 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received a Bachelor of Science from Lehigh University in 1988 and a Master of Arts in biology from Columbia University in 1990. She then attended the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where she was a member of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review. She graduated in 1993 with a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, and Order of the Coif membership.[1]
After law school, Noreika entered private practice at the Wilmington, Delaware law firm Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell. During her 25 years at Morris Nichols, Noreika served as counsel in more than 500 cases, while specializing in patent law, and representing parties in cases involving biotechnology, chemistry, consumer products, computer science, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals.[2] Noreika worked at Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell until she became a judge.
Before becoming a judge, she made campaign donations to both Republican and Democratic candidates, but mostly to Republicans.[3][4]
Federal judicial service
On December 20, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Noreika to serve as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, to the seat vacated by Judge Gregory M. Sleet, who assumed senior status on May 1, 2017. Her nomination was part of a bipartisan package of nominees which included Colm Connolly.[5] On February 14, 2018, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee[6] On March 15, 2018, her nomination was reported out of committee by a voice vote.[7] On August 1, 2018, her nomination was confirmed by a voice vote.[8] She received her judicial commission on August 9, 2018.[9] Maryellen Noreika has been considered a potential nominee for a federal judgeship in the Federal Circuit by President Joe Biden.[10]

    I wonder if it is being argued that violating the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, by lying on a Form 4473, is 5 years of federal time per charge, and per Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Hunter can not receive a 5 year concurrent sentence, he will receive 5 year CONSECUTIVE sentences? In the Federal Prison System, there is no parole. Parole for federal prisoners was abolished in the 1980's.

  However, federal judges routinely put first offenders who show remorse on probation, when no one was injured and nobody got rich. So, I wonder why Hunter was not offered a probation plea deal? Unlike Donald Trump in the hush money and other criminal prosecutions against him, President Biden and Hunter have not railed against the US Attorney, ATF and Judge Noreika. So I wonder again, why there is no probation plea deal, or if there was, why Hunter didn’t take it?

    All this fuss over one gun a drug addict seems bought and he didn’t shoot anybody with it, he didn’t go into a school and shoot children and their teachers, but he didn’t disclose when he bought the gun that he was an active drug addict. Yet his Daddy is helping Israel kill and maim a lot of unarmed civilians in Gaza, and Donald Trump may never be tried for trying to overthrow the national government.

    I heard that dirt Hillary Clinton had on the Bidens was how she got the Democrat nomination in 2016, before anyone knew about her dirt, and that, along with help from Julian Assange and Russian hackers and Vladimir Putin, is how Donald Trump got into the White House. So what the heck, perhaps the Democrats should stand up and take a bow? 

  Without his father’s influence as Barack Obama’s vice president, I don’t see how Hunter could have made a fortune off Ukraine. 

    If I were hired today to represent Hunter, I would ask Judge Noreika for a recess of the trial, and out of the jury’s presence, I would advise Hunter to take the witness stand, be sworn in, tell Judge Noreika that he lied on the gun application form, he was an active drug addict at the time, he had no self control, which is how it is with addicts, and say he’s sorry he didn’t do this sooner, and he isn’t an addict any more, and he won’t accept a pardon from his president father. If Hunter does that, I put into evidence recent pee drug screens administered by a government approved agency, which Hunter had passed, and I  ask Judge Noreika to dismiss the jury and put Hunter on probation.

    If Hunter doesn’t do what I advise him to do, I ask Judge Noreika to allow me to withdraw from the case.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

As the rest of the world watches the alien lizard virus invasion of America

     

    In 1968, I graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law and clerked for United States District Judge Clarence W. Allgood in Birmingham, Alabama. He presided over every federal prosecution in north Alabama. Behind the scenes, he ran the Democratic Party in Alabama, except for the George Wallace faction. Although he did not attend church, he was the most Godly man I ever knew. He is he first person memorialized in my book, A Few Remarkable Alabama People I Have Known, which is a free read at the internet library, archive.org- https://archive.org/details/a-few-remarkable-alabama-people-i-have-known_202210

    An amiga, who lives near Birmingham and has followed my online musings since my younger brother Major died in 2010,  texted me after the hush money jury verdict came in, in New York City.

Mortica 

Now I can breathe, I can’t wait to see your post about it.

You know people know who was on the jury. If you were off seven weeks and the triall was 7 weeks. Coworkers figured it out already. 

    After publishing yesterday’s the great pussy grabber’s pecker was convicted by an extraordinarily brave jury of his peers in his hometown of tampering the 2016 presidential election, I texted Morticia, and then we had ourselves a little jitterbug perfume waltz tango.

Me

Trump’s lawyers were given the jurors' names

Morticia

Surely they won’t make it public, that fool might.

Me

I will be very surprised if they didn’t give Trump that info, even though they were not supposed to. I expect a leak in the courthouse will out the jurors. No way they remain anonymous.

Morticia

That’s a shame, I heard Trump’s lawyer say they expected all along a guilty verdict.

Me

I just now saw on CNN that MAGAs are claiming the evil judge gave bad instructions to the jury, but, hey, Trump’s lawyers had signed off on those instructions.

Morticia

Trump’s sick mentally.

Narcissist. He’s the type it’s everybody on earth's fault but his.

Me

Actually, it’s his pecker's fault :-) 

 

Morticia

He’d have to have Bill Cosby (drug) me. Honey Bunch. That was his name for Stormy in her book. “When will you be back in my Honey Bunch”? Well, he loves to be the number one person. I wish the news would shut up talking about him. I think he should go to Rikers. Don Siegelman and Richard Scrushy were chained in courtroom shackles and led straight to prison. At least Trump was found to be a felon and you know he has to be livid. If they quit talking about him on news that will get him even worse.

What really will kill him if he’s incarcerated or house arrest NO GOLF!!!!!

Me

I prefer Rikers.

After tampering the 2016 presidential election, Trump tried to overthrow the national government, claiming the Dems rigged the 2020 election. 

[Siegelman was an Alabama governor and Scrushy owned a Birmingham hospital.]

Morticia 

Riker’s no Secret Service.

No Diet Coke

Me

Orange Crush  

 

    My friend Bob, who does the tech work for my books at the free internet library, said he perused Trump’s Truth Social, and it's filled with conspiracy theories: those people will believe anything; they say the New York hush money case prosecutor is a lizard person, a reptilian alien.

    Bob said it's in the online media that the hush money case jury was not picked from Manhattan, but was picked from somewhere else in New York where Democrats far outnumber Republicans, when, in fact, the jurors all live in Manhattan.

    Bob said it's in the online media that Judge Juan Merchan’s parents were illegal immigrants from Puerto Rico. I said Puerto Rico is an American territory, and New York City is full of Puerto Ricans.

    Bob said it's in the online media, which I also had heard from a MAGA friend, that in Judge Merchan's instructions to the jurors, he said they didn’t have to be unanimous to convict. 

    I emailed Bob what Judge Merchan instructed the jurors, which Trump’s lawyers had signed off on, and MAGAs twisted into nonsense.

Your verdict, on each count you consider, whether guilty or

not guilty, must be unanimous. In order to find the defendant

guilty, however, you need not be unanimous on whether the

defendant committed the crime personally, or by acting in concert with another, or both.

“By Unlawful Means”

Although you must conclude unanimously that the

defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were.

In determining whether the defendant conspired to

promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you may consider the following: (1) violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act otherwise known as FECA;

(2) the falsification of other business records; or (3) violation of tax laws.

    

    Bob said the twisting and spinning will get a lot worse. I said it’s been worse for a long time. MAGAs are like a lizard virus that keeps mutating into strange new forms. Ditto the Democrats, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his devotees.

    Bob said the jury wasn’t sequestered and Trump kept bellowing to the press and other news media and on Truth Social what he thought about the trial, Judge Merchan, the prosecutors and the witnesses, and the jury had to hear of that and it did not sit well with them. 

    I said I can imagine the jurors also got wind of Trump and MAGAs and FOX News and other conservative taking heads claiming the New York City trial was a political witch hunt, behind which was President Joe Biden, who had zero sway over what the New York state prosecutor was doing, and I can imagine that did not sit well with the jurors, either, and I can imagine it crossed their minds that Trump actually is a warlock and their job was try to do something about it.

     I told Bob that the hush money jury had two lawyers on it, and he said he had not known that. I said Trump and his lawyers really screwed up letting lawyers be on that jury. When a lawyer is on a jury, the jury behaves very differently, because the lawyer cuts through all the bull shit and hones in on the facts and the law. 

    A trial that long, the jury reached unanimous verdicts on all counts in two days’ time, I can’t imagine that happening that fast without the two lawyers on the jury and if the jury was not overwhelmingly convinced Trump was guilty.

    Trump had boasted he would testify, but when it came down to it, he didn’t, and he was the only person who could refute what Stormy Daniels and the former editor of the National Enquirer David Pecker and Trump's own lawyer Michael Cohen, who did the hush money deal with Daniels, had testified.

    I read enough news reports of Daniels, Peckers and Cohen’s testimony to think there was no way the jury would think they were lying, and the jury knew Trump’s lawyers thought Daniels, Pecker and Cohen were telling the truth, and Trump’s lawyers kept badgering them, did not sit well with the jury. 

    I think any lawyer worth his or her salt would have told Trump to plead out and get a wrist slap, and I imagine his lawyers did that and Trump told them it wasn’t going to happen, and I imagine the two lawyers on the jury explained that to the rest of the jurors.

    Nor did Trump seeming to fall asleep many times during the trial. and acting out in  and outside the courtroom, as if he was the king of a banana public.

    I spent a good bit of time in poor tropical countries and Americans who have not done that have no clue what a banana republic is. MAGAs call Democrats communists, when they should look at the guy Trump looks up to, Vladimir Putin, who was KGB.

    When I heard that Trump raised $50,000,000 since the jury verdict came in, I was not surprised, and two thoughts came to me: "You cannot worship God and mammon", and "A sucker is born every minute.” 

    The hush money trial and conviction indeed made the great pussy grabber lizard virus more vigorous and determined, and it very well might get him elected in November.

    I think there was a problem with Judge Merchant being the judge after he had donated to the Dems, and he was assigned the case instead of a computer lottery assigning the case, and perhaps the prosecutor should not have brought the case under the legal theory it used. However, some of the Republican justices on the United States Supreme Court don't recuse themselves when they have a conflict of interest. 

    It was important for the American public to see that Donald Trump bought silence to help him win the 2016 presidential election, and in that way he rigged that election.

    Alas, I think the lizard Joe Biden should retire- I won’t vote for him in November- but he’s the Democrats’ horse, and the Republicans have no other horse but Donald Trump, so unless Biden and Trump, and the lizard Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are abducted by aliens, or the the Lord takes them, and Chaos of an entirely different kind arrives...

    Good grief, what if the presidential election ends in a dead heat, a tie, and the House of Representatives has to decide it? Eeek!!! 

    I told someone yesterday, who was moaning about America going to hell, that the only solution I see is to nuke Washington, D.C., when Biden and Trump are there, and Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court are in session- that would drain the swamp.

    Since that’s not likely to happen, I add to my recent offer to God, my life for Donald Trump’s life, my life for Joe Biden and Robert F. Kennedy’s lives, too.

    MAGAs are not the only lizard virus, but they and their Warlock are the most dangerous lizard virus in America today. They are a reaction to the Democrats nominating the lizard Hillary Clinton in 2016, so in that sense, the Democrats are responsible for the lizard Donald Trump being a convicted felon. 

    For those who prefer mainstream reporting and commentary. I interjected just a few words, in bold.

Courthouse News Service

JOSH RUSSELL / May 31, 2024

MANHATTAN (CN) — After a mixed jury of a dozen New Yorkers unanimously delivered guilty verdicts on all 34 felony counts against Donald Trump on Thursday afternoon, legal experts told Courthouse News that two lawyers on the panel may have helped other jurors see through the noise in the case and focus on the “actual law” behind the charges of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election.

Deliberations lasted roughly 12 hours over two days before jurors reached the unanimous guilty verdict on all 34 counts of falsifying business records, making the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in November's election the first former U.S. president in the nation's history to be convicted of a crime.

The jury — seven men and five women — included two attorneys, a software engineer, an e-commerce sales professional, a security engineer, a teacher, a speech therapist, an investment banker and a retired wealth manager.

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Courthouse News he thought it was a mistake for Trump’s lawyers to not strike the two lawyers from the trial jury.

“That never ever happens,” he said. “You rarely have one, much less two.”

Rahmani said lawyer-jurors can be “so powerful in the deliberation room” because they’re able to set aside the irrelevant spectacle surrounding a case and instead “focus on the jury instructions and the actual law in the case.”

“When you have lawyers on the panel, they tend to sway the deliberations, so you have to make sure that they’re on your side,” he said, noting that as a trial litigator he nearly always uses peremptory strikes to remove lawyers from the potential jury pool.

“Lawyer-jurors are very, very risky unless they’re on your side,” Rahmani added.“Jurors like that are high-risk, and certainly not helpful.”

The 12-person jury, empaneled six weeks ago after more than two days of jury selection, found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to cover up his reimbursement of a payment to actress Stormy during the 2016 presidential election to silence her about an extramarital tryst with Trump a decade prior.

At the request of the jurors during deliberations, Justice Juan Merchan reread his lengthy instructions [click that link to see Judge Merchan’s v-e-r-y l-o-n-g instructions] about how the jurors were to consider evidence and what can and cannot be inferred from it.

"You must set aside any personal opinions or bias you might have in favor of or against the defendant, and you must not allow any such opinions to influence your verdict,” the judge instructed.

Jurors were not given a written copy of those instructions, per state court rules, but the judge was allowed to reread the instructions out loud. Many jurors were seen writing notes while Merchan spoke.

They also asked to review transcripts of testimony from prosecution witnesses, Michael Cohen and David Pecker, whom the Manhattan district attorney accused of conspiring with Trump to bury negative publicity around the 2016 presidential election.

Attorney Renato Stabile told Courthouse News he believed that Trump’s defense pinned hope on a holdout juror prompting a mistrial, and believed the two lawyers on the slate of jurors “were going to parse the legal issues very carefully for the rest of the jury.”

“I'm not sure that happened in this case,” Stabile said Friday. “While the jury asked for a readback of the jury instructions, I ultimately think that the instructions … were too complicated for even the lawyers to fully understand and dissect.”

Horse shit 

 

Stabile said the other jurors, including would-be holdouts, are likely to look to lawyers as leaders, even if they practice civil litigation, not criminal law.

“For that reason, I tend to avoid keeping lawyers on any jury unless I am very confident that they will be on my side,” he said. “In this case, I believe that political affiliation was the ‘super factor’ in jury selection and was significantly more important than any other juror characteristic."

Juror No. 3 was identified as a corporate lawyer originally from Oregon. During jury selection, he told the court that he is “actually not super familiar with the other charges” Trump faced. 

“I don’t really follow the news that closely; a little embarrassing to say,” said the juror, who told the court he gets his news from The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Google.

The other lawyer on the panel was Juror No. 7, a middle-aged civil litigator who is originally from North Carolina.

He told the court he didn't know “anything about election finance” and said he was ambivalent about Trump, liking some things about him but disliking others.

“I’m not sure I know anything about his character,” he added. “I’m a litigator, so I take the law seriously and I take the judge’s instructions very seriously.” He also said he was a regular listener of the New York Public Radio station, WNYC.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday credited the jury for reaching a verdict “based on the evidence and the law, and the evidence and the law alone."

"Over the course of the past several weeks, a jury of 12 everyday New Yorkers was presented with overwhelming evidence — including invoices, checks, bank statements, audio recordings, phone logs, text messages and direct testimony from 22 witnesses — that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Trump illegally falsified 34 New York business records,” Bragg said in a statement announcing the verdict Thursday.

Throughout the trial at the New York Supreme criminal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, Justice Merchan and the New York Office of Court Administration took special measures to ensure the jurors remained anonymous. The judge specifically prohibited the release of their names or addresses, without objection from Trump’s lawyers.

After delivering the guilty verdicts on Thursday, three black Ford Transit passenger vans with tinted windows, appearing to be carrying the anonymous jury, drove the wrong way up a one-way street away from the frenzied scene around the courthouse.

Trump's lawyers have vowed to appeal. He is set to be sentenced on July 11, days before the delegates of the Republican Party are expected to confirm him as the party’s nomination for presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In March, he moved to have the proceedings indefinitely adjourned due to “prejudicial pretrial publicity,” claiming that the juror pool in Manhattan had been “bombarded” with negative media coverage of Trump which tainted his odds at a fair trial.

On the heels of the verdict Thursday, donors contributed a daily record of nearly $35 million to Trump’s effort for a second term as president, his campaign announced Friday.

Throughout the trial, Trump regularly opined to reporters that he should have been out campaigning but was in court instead for what he called a “a very unfair trial.”

What was unfair was Trump hid paying hush money to keep private information that might have cost him the 2016 election, and he didn’t take the stand and defend himself, boo hoo, and the jurors, prosecutors, prosecution witnesses and Judge Merchan put their and their families’ lives at risk. 

sloanbashinskky@yahoo.com