Hunter Biden, like Donald Trump, is now a convicted felon — a personal and political blow to his father, U.S. President Joe Biden, that complicates his 2024 campaign for reelection.
The younger Biden is the first child of a sitting U.S. president convicted of a felony. He was found guilty on Tuesday of violating federal laws for illegally buying a gun during a period he was taking crack cocaine. Jurors delivered their verdict after deliberating for three hours, capping a one-week trial in a prosecution brought by his father’s own Justice Department.
That outcome, and another trial for Hunter Biden — on tax charges starting in September, just two months before voters head to the polls — threaten to hang over Joe Biden’s campaign, posing a painful messaging test in his race against his predecessor, Trump. The president has assailed Trump as a “convicted felon” to capitalize on the latter being the first former U.S. president found guilty of a felony for falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments.