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On the one hand, I sympathize with Joe for having a failson (it doesn’t seem that Joe’s a bad father, Beau turned out well and Ashley seems fine, I guess) and it’s also likely that any president’s child would get a similar sweetheart deal. If the president intervened, well…I think most people here would do what Joe did for their own children if they were president, I’m pretty sure.
On the other hand, Hunter seemingly can’t stop fucking up and it might well have been good for him and good for Joe to put him away for a few years.
Would Trump's children receive such a deal?
We didn't prosecute Trump's son for misdemeanors no one is charged for. We didn't prosecute Biden's son for misdemeanors everyone is charged for. Therefore, equal treatment!
Above you stated it is not the IRS’ MO to seek felony convictions for tax fraud if after the whole process the taxpayer pays the money. Now you are claiming prosecutions for firearm possessions while lying about being a drug addict are “crazy rare.”
This cannot be from personal experience. The overlap between someone who practices enough million dollar plus tax evasion cases to understand the government’s MO and someone who practices enough drug addicts with guns to understand the government’s MO is zero. They are just fundamentally different practice areas for different clients with different skill sets.
This isn’t even a matter of “general legal analysis of the law.” No you are talking about the law as applied not as written which requires some experience.
So, what is your source for your claims? And what is your counter source (ie did you consider someone on the other side of the argument)? And how did you weigh them against each other? Or did you just make shit up and try to sound authoritative hoping no one would say boo?
As a non-lawyer, it's fairly well known that lying on the ATF Form 4473 basically never results in charges (as of the 2018 GAO report, at least -- they claim they're trying to increase those numbers). In FY 2017, 8.6M reported transactions led to 112k denials, 12.7k investigations, and 12 prosecutions. Presumably every one of those denials lied about eligibility on that form, barring questionable corner cases like "I forgot I have a felony conviction."
Note that Form 4473 here is the one that asks "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?" and notes in bold that lying on the form is itself a felony. I most often see this referenced by people in gun circles complaining that the law as-written is not enforced.
As much as I wish we'd actually, like, enforce laws in this country, starting to enforce previously-mostly-ignored laws specifically with people close to politicians is a bit of a bad look. OTOH, I'd really like to see us hold those in positions of power to a higher standard, rather than a lower one.
You could say the same thing about FARA violations but that changed with Trump.
This case seems much worse than the normal. Here the gun was disposed of next to a school while Hunter and his sister-in-law and lover were both strung out. Therefore the activity seems much worse than normal. Also the perp’s own father sponsored the bill…
I wasn't aware of the other gun crimes. The original article says "it would not prosecute him in connection with his purchase of a handgun in 2018 during a period when he was using drugs," which seems to dance around the details of post-purchase behavior, although I hardly expect to see charges filed for that either.
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