Turley tempers expectations of those calling for Hunter Biden to serve jail time: ‘He’s a first offender’

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley has warned that Hunter Biden will likely face no jail time despite his gun indictment this week.

“I said when the indictment came out that first of all, the 25-year period is unrealistic. He’s [Hunter Biden] a first offender. But more importantly, these are not going to be daisy chained. They’re not going to run consecutively. They would run concurrently even if he’s convicted on all three,” he said Friday on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”

“As a first offender, he would then get a substantial reduction from the maximum. But there is a real chance that he would get no jail time at all. The question is whether this is just the start of a series of indictments and whether he’s looking at some other charges coming down the pike,” Turley added.

Listen:

He’s not the only one who’s made such a prediction. So has conservative commentator Ben Domenech.

“Everyone knows Joe Biden will never let his sole surviving son see the inside of a prison cell. He will either win re-election and pardon him, or lose and pardon him, or pardon him then resign or not run,” Domenech wrote for The Spectator.

All this comes in the wake of President Joe Biden’s youngest son being indicted on Thursday on three criminal counts, including for “making false statements on a federal firearms form and possession of a firearm as a prohibited person,” according to CNN.

In total, he now faces 25 years in prison, though as noted by Turley and Domenech, the likelihood of him spending even a day behind bars seems extraordinarily unlikely.

Interestingly, Hunter’s indictment prompted more backlash from members of the right than from members of the left. Why? Because conservatives are convinced the gun indictment is just a distraction from the other crimes he’s committed and that they claim the administration is trying to cover up. Crimes that are arguably much worse because they can be traced back to his father.

“Today’s indictment of Hunter Biden is a smokescreen. Don’t fall for it. This is a fig leaf designed to deflect attention away from the real problem: the Biden family is selling out U.S. foreign policy for their own family’s private financial gain,” GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy tweeted Thursday.

As potential proof that the indictment is just a distraction, Domenech pointed to the unusual timing.

“The three-part indictment is very simple and straightforward and could’ve been brought a long time ago… so why this week? Why does it come after a rough opening to September for Democrats, with horrible polls released concerning Joe Biden’s age and approval ratings — and particularly the same week that Republicans finally pulled the trigger on an impeachment inquiry?” he wrote for The Spectator.

Good question. And incidentally, Domenech appears to have some good answers.

“First, it serves to muddy the waters. The counts in these indictments have nothing to do with what Republicans are doing with their impeachment inquiry, but the two stories will be combined by Democrats and the media — already James Comer is having to separate the two strands,” he wrote.

“The gun charges are also the most sympathetic of Hunter’s misdeeds, given the drug addiction involved, and therefore allow the White House to spin it as targeting the Biden family in an aggressive way — ‘He was going through a lot, Joe has nothing to do with buying a gun,’ etc.,” he added.

Plus, he continued, now Democrats can just sweep everything else under the rug and  falsely purport to be the party of law and order — which they most certainly are not.

Democrats can even call Republicans hypocrites by asking why they’re not defending Hunter’s gun rights …

Vivek Saxena

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