‘Why Pursue It?’ CNN’s Keilar Asks If Any Other Defendant Would Be Charged The Way Hunter Biden Is

CNN anchor Brianna Keilar asked why charges under an imperiled law are being pursued against First Son Hunter Biden, and whether another defendant would be treated the same way.

News broke Thursday afternoon that Special Counsel Davis Weiss has secured a grand jury indictment against Hunter Biden on three charges related to his purchase of a firearm.

Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell has previously said the charges are the result of political pressure from ex-President Donald Trump and others, that a prior diversion agreement is still in effect for the gun issue, that the charge had never been brought as a “standalone” by Weiss’s office, and the law has since been ruled unconstitutional by an appeals court.

Keilar anchored coverage of the news on Thursday’s edition of CNN News Central, and raised some of those issues with correspondent Evan Perez:

EVAN PEREZ: I do know that Hunter Biden’s attorneys are going to point to that ruling in the Fifth Circuit that calls into question whether this law is even going to stand when, by the time this is all said and done, and certainly before it gets to the Supreme Court.

BRIANNA KEILAR: So why then, Evan, pursue it? I mean, if this was another defendant, would they be pursuing it?

EVAN PEREZ: I think that’s a question that I think you’re going to hear a lot from Hunter Biden’s team and certainly from people who support him, because, you know, again, this is not a final decision. Certainly the appeals court in the Fifth Circuit, it’s a very conservative circuit. It’s one that certainly certainly the Biden administration spends a lot of time fighting with because they keep making rulings that are contrary to things that the Biden administration has been trying to do.

Right. So it certainly is not over, certainly from the from the federal government’s point of view, from the Justice Department Department’s point of view. This is a longstanding law. This is a law that’s been on the books for a long, long, long time. And it’s only now being revisited because of the trend that we’ve seen from the conservative Supreme Court and the courts in general, that perhaps Second Amendment rights are more expansive than we’ve ever thought. Right.

And so that’s one reason why, you know, that you could see why prosecutors in Delaware are bringing this case because it’s not final and it doesn’t apply to them.

That ruling in New Orleans does not apply to the district in Delaware where this case is being brought. But it does raise the question. And one reason why I think it may have played, at least again, this is me doing some analysis here. It may have played played or played a role, at least partly in why David Weiss, this now special counsel in Delaware, sitting in Delaware, wanted to try to get this, move this, move on from this, because there are, I think, very, very big questions as to whether this law that they’re using to prosecute Hunter Biden is actually going to stand up when everything is said and done, certainly by the Supreme Court.

Watch the clip above CNN News Central.