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Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, was instructed to seek employment by a judge as a condition for avoiding jail time in advance of his upcoming trial on gun charges.
Biden, 53, is currently facing a handful of federal charges, stemming from a long-term Department of Justice investigation into his conduct. Over the summer, the president's son pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges related to his failure to pay income taxes on multiple occasions as part of a plea deal that would have seen him avoid jail time. The deal fell apart, however, when a judge overseeing the case took issue with its scope, forcing Biden to switch to a not-guilty plea and sending his legal team back to the drawing board.
On Tuesday, Biden appeared at a courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, for another arraignment hearing for more federal charges he was hit with last month: three counts for lying on a federal form to acquire a Colt Cobra handgun in 2018, and for being unlawfully in possession of a firearm while using illegal drugs. His attorney, Abbe Lowell, entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of his client. The hearing lasted approximately 25 minutes, according to Reuters.
As part of the arraignment, U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher Burke set Biden's conditions for pre-trial release. They included clearing all travel plans with a probation officer, abstaining from alcohol and illegal drugs, and seeking employment. Failure to meet those conditions would see him sent to prison in advance of his trial. As part of his efforts to meet the conditions, Burke acknowledged that Biden had submitted multiple recent drug tests, all of which were negative.
Newsweek reached out to Biden's attorney via email for further comment.
Biden's trial marks the first time in history that the child of a sitting U.S. president has faced a criminal trial. The trial is also set to play out as his father seeks reelection in 2024.
President Biden's overwhelmingly likely Republican opponent, Donald Trump, has also been making history as the first former president to be hit with his own criminal charges. Over the past year, he has been criminally indicted four times, twice at the federal level, for attempts to overturn the 2020 election and for mishandling classified documents, and twice at the state level in New York and Georgia.
The same day that the younger Biden was being arraigned in Delaware, Trump was also sitting in court as part of a civil fraud trial brought by the state of New York. A judge last week found that Trump had repeatedly overstated his own wealth and the value of several assets, as part of a scheme to acquire more favorable loans and deals, though Trump himself has denied any wrongdoing.
Update 10/04/23 9:25 a.m. ET: The headline to this story was changed.
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more