Ever since Hunter Biden’s now-defunct plea deal offering him pre-trial diversion for purchasing a firearm at a time when he’s admitted to smoking crack “every fifteen minutes” was first disclosed, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for similar defendants and their ultimate sentence. After all, we were told at the time that the charge against Biden was rarely used, and there was nothing untoward about offering him a deal to keep him out of prison for being an unlawful user of drugs in possession of a firearm.
I didn’t believe that excuse at the time, and there’ve been several instances since the deal was announced where individuals in similar circumstances have not received the same sweetheart deal that was first offered to the president’s son. The most recent case involves a Michigan man named Timothy Teagan, who was sentenced this week to a year in federal prison for consuming marijuana as a gun owner.
On Jul. 17, 2022, Teagan completed a Firearms Transaction Record for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) form 4,473 in connection with acquiring a firearm from a federally licensed firearms dealer in Westland.
Teagan applied for the purchase of a Glock 34, a 9-millimeter pistol. On the ATF Form 4.473, Teagan checked “no” to the question concerning drug use.
The 23-year-old prepared ATF form 4,473 and submitted it and he was a frequent and habitual user of marijuana and was also addicted to the drug.
Teagan lied on the ATF form 4,473 because he knew that he would be legally prohibited from purchasing and possessing a firearm if he answered truthfully and admitted that he was addicted to marijuana or a habitual user of marijuana.
Officials say he purchased the Glock 9 millimeter pistol on July 20, 2022.
In addition, in October 2022, Teagan possessed a Diamondback Arms, Inc. DB-15 .556 caliber semi-automatic rifle and ammunition. He stored the rifle and some of the ammunition in his bedroom at his father’s home located in Plymouth.
The 23-year-old purchased the rifle in December 2019 from a federally licensed firearms dealer in Canton, Michigan.
Teagan knew that he was a frequent and habitual user of marijuana and therefore not permitted to possess the firearm.
The FBI took an interest in Teagan because of his affiliation with the Boogaloo Boys, a fact they discovered after Plymouth police arrested Teagan on a domestic violence charge in October of last year. It’s not clear if those local charges have been resolved, but as far as the federal case against Teagan goes, despite a lengthy investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force the only crimes the U.S. Attorney charged him with were the violations of 18 US Code Section 922(g)(3); being an unlawful user of drugs in possession of a firearm and lying on the Form 4473 when he purchased his guns.
In other words, the exact same crime that Hunter Biden is accused of committing. But while U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison declared after Teagan’s sentencing that her office “stands ready to aggressively prosecute those who seek to circumvent federal firearms laws intended to protect our community,” then-U.S. Attorney (and now special counsel) David Weiss delivered a “get out of jail free” card to Biden instead of aggressively prosecuting him for the same crime that landed Teagan in federal prison.
It’s pretty clear it’s better to be a Biden son than a Boogaloo Boy, at least as far as the Department of Justice is concerned. We may yet see Hunter Biden offered a deal that more closely resembles the one offered to and accepted by Teagan, but if DOJ had their way Biden would be free of federal gun charges without spending a day behind bars; a charging decision that reeks of a two-tiered system of justice benefitting the current occupant of the White House and his family.