On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” MSNBC Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos stated that the pre-trial diversion on a gun charge that Hunter Biden was going to receive under the plea agreement that fell apart later in the day is “an amazing deal” and “a gift from heaven” that is “as good as if you went to trial and won” on a charge that “there’s a lot of video and photographic evidence” for, in addition to the evidence in Hunter Biden’s book.
Cevallos said that pre-trial diversion in a federal case “virtually never” happens, and “It was an amazing deal. And, frankly, if the government’s going to start handing out pre-trial diversion like this, I’m going to get in line, because it’s an amazing deal. Like I said, it gets you just as good as not guilty. You can get your record expunged, at least in state court, depending on the state. It’s as good as if you went to trial and won. So, if the government is now in the business of ordinarily handing out pre-trial diversion, then consider my hand raised.”
He added that while the section Hunter was charged with violating isn’t charged as much as a felon in possession charge, “pre-trial diversion for a gun case in federal court is an amazing deal, I don’t care how you slice it. And if you disagree with me, show me the statistics of people charged under that particular statute of percentages of people who get pre-trial diversion for gun cases.”
MSNBC Contributor Mike Barnicle then asked, “So, is Hunter Biden the only one who could have gotten this amazing deal?”
Cevallos responded, “I don’t know about that. I’m not going to go so far as to say that it was some kind of political influence. But it must be amazing lawyering. Look, it’s the kind of thing that…maybe it factored subconsciously or consciously into the government’s mind, they have to consider whether they can get a conviction. Well, factoring into that decision, you have to think about, hey, this is a very well-known defendant and if we try to seat a jury, we may have a hard time convicting this particular defendant. And I do agree that this particular subsection of the gun statute is harder to prove, but look, if you need to prove that Hunter Biden was an abuser of drugs, I think there’s a lot of video and photographic evidence that that was going on, including a book. So, your burden of proof might be a lot easier than it would be with an unknown defendant. … I just can’t back down from the idea that, in federal court, gun charges under this particular statute, pre-trial diversion is a gift from heaven.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.