A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Hunter Biden to appear in person for his arraignment next week on felony gun charges, denying his request to appear via video.
“Defendant should not receive special treatment in this matter,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher J. Burke wrote. “Any other defendant would be required to attend his or her initial appearance in person. So too here.”
In his order, Burke scheduled the arraignment for the morning of Sept. 26.
Sept. 15, 202303:12
A lawyer for the president’s son argued in a court filing Tuesday that Hunter Biden shouldn’t have to appear in person, and that a virtual arraignment would help “minimize an unnecessary burden on government resources and the disruption to the courthouse and downtown areas when a person protected by the Secret Service flies across the country and then must be transported to and from a downtown location.”
Biden lives in California. The arraignment will take place at a federal courthouse in Delaware.
Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in Tuesday’s filing that Biden would “enter a plea of not guilty, and there is no reason why he cannot utter those two words by video conference.”
Federal prosecutors had opposed Biden’s request to appear by video. In a court filing, prosecutors from special counsel David Weiss’s office had argued that Biden “should be treated no differently” than other criminal defendants.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
