Former DOJ Official Says It’ll Be ‘Tough’ For Hunter Biden Defense To Convince Jury Of His Innocence

Former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tom Dupree said Hunter Biden’s argument that he did not believe he was a drug addict when he purchased a gun will be challenging to get a jury to believe.

Biden is facing three federal gun charges brought by Special Counsel David Weiss in September, which include providing false statements and knowingly possessing a gun while being addicted to drugs. Dupree on “CNN News Central” said Biden’s defense strategy to deny his knowledge he was a drug addict poses challenges because of the evidence against him.

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“I think that is going to be a critical point in this trial, and I strongly suspect that’s actually going to be the primary defense that we hear from Hunter Biden’s team,” Dupree said. “What they are going to argue is that even if he was abusing drugs at the time, he thought genuinely, in their view, that maybe he wasn’t addicted to drugs, maybe he wasn’t abusing them. And so therefore, he can’t be held criminally accountable for checking the box ‘no on the federal form.”

“I think it‘s a tough argument for the jury. I don’t know if the defense has a whole lot of other options available to it,” he continued. “This may be the best they can do, but I think it’s going to be tough persuading the jury that well, when he checked a box, he didn’t really realize that he was abusing drugs at the time.”

Prosecutors obtained some messages and material from Biden’s abandoned