Hunter Biden’s DC law license suspended due to gun case conviction
By Tierney Sneed and Marshall Cohen, CNN
Washington (CNN) — Hunter Biden’s Washington, DC, law license has been suspended, according to a newly released order from a local court that pointed to his recent conviction on three gun crimes.
The order was issued by Chief Judge Anna Elizabeth Blackburne-Rigsby of the DC Court of Appeals, which is the highest appellate court in DC and oversees the DC Bar. Her order said the felony convictions appear to be the types of “serious crimes” under the DC Bar rules that govern such immediate orders of suspension. The judge also instructed the DC Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility to hold additional proceedings, as laid out in the bar’s rules.
It is typical for bars in other states to reciprocate law license suspension or disbarment orders, meaning Biden’s license is also likely to soon be suspended in any other state where he is licensed.
A jury in Wilmington, Delaware, found the president’s son guilty earlier this month of unlawfully possessing a gun in 2018 while using drugs and of making false statements related to his drug use when purchasing the firearm. The case, which was brought by special counsel David Weiss, was the first of two trials Biden is facing. Later this year, a tax case that Weiss brought against Biden will go to trial in Los Angeles.
Biden has asked for a new trial in the gun case. His lawyers have also made challenges to the prosecution, including arguing that the case violated the Second Amendment. Those appeals have been unsuccessful.
Biden has not worked as an attorney in recent years and instead has tried to earn income by releasing a memoir in 2021 and through his fledgling art career.
He worked at the high-profile law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner from 2009 to 2017, according to court filings in his criminal case.
He also represented Hong Kong-based businessman Patrick Ho while he was the target of a Justice Department foreign corruption probe. (Ho was later charged and convicted of bribery and money laundering.) Biden was indirectly paid $1 million to represent Ho, according to his tax indictment and a Senate GOP report.
During closing arguments in Biden’s gun trial, one of the prosecutors described him as a “Yale-educated defendant,” referring to the school where he earned his law degree. They brought this up to argue that, as a lawyer, Biden should have understood the legalese on the federal firearm forms he filled out when he purchased a revolver in 2018.
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