Hunter Biden has been found guilty on all three counts. Here’s how the verdict will affect the election

After a years-long investigation by a Department of Justice prosecutor appointed under former president Donald Trump, a Delaware jury has found Hunter Biden guilty on three separate criminal charges related to his purchase of a revolver from a gun shop in Wilmington six years ago.

Prosecutors alleged that Hunter, the youngest and only surviving son of President Joe Biden, lied on an eight-page form he had to fill out to buy the .38 caliber revolver. It is a federal crime to lie on the form, known as an ATF Form 4473, which prosecutors said he did when he checked a box indicating that he wasn’t a user of illegal drugs.

They also separately alleged that he violated a separate criminal law by making a false statement regarding his status as a drug addict during the transaction to the licensed gun dealer, and by possessing the gun while he was addicted to drugs.

Were the charges serious? Yes. Any gun-related criminal charge is generally serious, even in a country with relatively lax laws governing the possession and acquisition of firearms.

The week-long trial, held in a federal courthouse not far from where President Biden’s re-election campaign is based, marked a low point for Hunter. The Yale-educated attorney-turned-businessman has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for decades, by his own admission.

And it’s just the latest chapter in a long-running saga which Republicans hope will end with Hunter’s troubles helping to oust his father from the White House and usher in a restoration of Donald Trump — despite Trump’s status as a convicted felon.

Since 2019, when it became clear that Joe Biden would be a candidate in the 2020 election against Trump, Hunter Biden has been a cudgel which the GOP has sought to