© ZUMAPRESS.comHunter Biden is facing three gun related charges.
Five years after the now-53-year-old's sister-in-law-turned-lover Hallie Biden dumped Hunter's firearm in a trash can behind a grocery store in Delaware, FBI officials re-examined the pistol.
Agents removed the sealed Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver from a state police vault to photograph the weapon sometime last year and found white powder on the pouch that held the weapon, a court filing from special counsel David Weiss revealed.
"An FBI chemist subsequently analyzed the residue and determined that it was cocaine," the 52-page document read.
"To be clear," the prosecution motion added, "investigators literally found drugs on the pouch where the defendant had kept his gun."
Weiss' team was responding to a motion to dismiss the gun charges filed by Hunter Biden's lawyers last month.
In the rebuttal, Weiss' team recounted the evidence they had to confirm that the troubled first son was using illicit drugs at the time he completed a background check to buy the pistol and stated he was not addicted to any illicit substance, committing a federal crime in the process.
At another point in the rebuttal, prosecutors referenced Hunter Biden's 2021 memoir "Beautiful Things" in which he "made countless incriminating statements about his years-long drug usage."
"The defendant's choice to sell a book containing these admissions not only made the government's case against him stronger but also increased a potential prosecution's general deterrence value," Weiss' team wrote.
Comment: What an idiot!
Prosecutors noted that Hunter Biden plowed ahead with writing the book after he was made aware that local authorities had recovered the weapon from an elderly man who was sorting recyclables from the trash can and that there was an ongoing federal investigation into the matter.
They also pointed to messages, including ones Hunter exchanged with Hallie, who had discarded the weapon about 11 days after he bought it.
Hunter Biden's legal team, led by attorney Abbe Lowell, has claimed Weiss caved to "political pressure" by bringing the firearm charges in Delaware.
This past July, Hunter Biden was poised to enter a jail-free plea agreement for two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay taxes and enter a diversion program for the felony federal firearms charge.
But the deal imploded during a dramatic courtroom hearing once it became clear to the first son's attorneys that the deal was not meant to provide blanket immunity from prosecution for other offenses.
A month later, Weiss, the Delaware US Attorney, was granted special counsel status by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Hunter is now facing three federal gun-related felony charges over the ordeal.
Additionally, he has three felony and six misdemeanor counts pending against him in Los Angeles for allegedly evading $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019.
"Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter's last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought," Lowell said last month.
Prosecutors blistered the defense attorney's claim on Tuesday.
"Contrary to his assertion, he has not established that the Special Counsel, appointed by and serving at the pleasure of President Biden and his Attorney General, is punishing the defendant 'for the perceived sins of his father' in order to capitulate to a former President because of his tweets," Weiss' team contended.
"This theory is a fiction designed for a Hollywood script."
Hunter Biden has used his drug addiction and recovery efforts — he now claims to have achieved sobriety — as a cudgel against congressional and legal scrutiny.
"My struggles and my mistakes have been fodder for a vile and sustained disinformation campaign against [President Biden], and an all-out annihilation of my reputation through high-pitched but fruitless congressional investigations and, more recently, criminal charges for possessing an unloaded gun for 11 days five years ago - charges that appear to be the first-ever of their kind brought in the history of Delaware," he wrote in a USA Today op-ed last year.
Lowell's firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last month, Hunter Biden declined to testify before the GOP-led House impeachment inquiry in defiance of a subpoena after demanding a public appearance, which Republicans refused.
He is now reportedly in negotiations to appear before the House Oversight and Judiciary committees.
Yet another example of why america is where it is.