Hunter Biden was indicted Thursday on federal firearms prices, the newest and weightiest step but in a long-running investigation into the president’s son.

Biden is accused of mendacity about his drug use when he purchased a firearm in October 2018, a interval when he has acknowledged battling dependancy to crack cocaine, in response to the indictment filed in federal court docket in Delaware.

President Joe Biden’s son has additionally been beneath investigation for his enterprise dealings. The particular counsel overseeing the case has indicated that prices of failure to pay taxes on time could possibly be filed in Washington or in California, the place he lives.

The indictment comes as congressional Republicans pursue an impeachment inquiry into the Democratic president, largely over Hunter Biden’s enterprise dealings. Republicans have obtained testimony about how Hunter Biden used the “Biden brand” to drum up work abroad, however they haven’t produced exhausting proof of wrongdoing by the president.

The indictment says Hunter Biden lied on a kind required for each gun buy when he purchased a Colt Cobra Special at a Wilmington, Delaware, gun store in October 2018. He’s accused of checking a field falsely saying he was not a person of or hooked on medication and of illegally possessing the gun as a drug person.

A felony gun cost in opposition to Hunter Biden, 53, had beforehand been a part of a plea deal that additionally included responsible pleas to misdemeanor tax prices, however the settlement imploded throughout a court docket listening to in July when a decide raised questions on its uncommon provisions.

Defense attorneys have argued that part of the deal sparing Hunter Biden prosecution on the gun depend if he stays out of hassle stays in place. It contains immunity provisions in opposition to different potential prices. Attorneys indicated they might battle further prices filed in opposition to him, however didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Thursday.

Prosecutors, although, keep the settlement by no means took impact and is now invalid. They telegraphed prices have been coming earlier this month.

Republicans had denounced the plea settlement as a “sweetheart deal.” It would have allowed Hunter Biden to serve probation fairly than jail time after pleading responsible to failing to pay taxes in each 2017 and 2018.

His private earnings throughout these two years totaled roughly $4 million, together with enterprise and consulting charges from an organization he fashioned with the CEO of a Chinese enterprise conglomerate and the Ukrainian power firm Burisma, prosecutors have stated.

Congressional Republicans have continued their very own investigations into the Justice Department’s dealing with of the case in addition to almost each side of Hunter Biden’s enterprise dealings, looking for to attach his monetary affairs on to his father. They have failed to provide proof that the president instantly participated in his son’s work, although he generally had dinner together with his son’s purchasers or stated whats up to them on calls.