A federal court at the District of Columbia has suspended Hunter Biden’s law license after he was found guilty of committing “serious crimes” related to lying about his drug use to buy a firearm in Delaware in 2018. The court says that the D.C. Bar must enforce its disciplinary procedures and suspend the license indefinitely. 

“The respondent was found guilty of three felony counts” and it appears “that the offenses are ‘serious crimes,’” the appellate court writes in its Tuesday order forcing the suspension of Biden’s law license. “The respondent is suspended immediately from the practice of law in the District of Columbia pending resolution of this matter, and the Board on Professional Responsibility is directed to institute a formal proceeding to determine the nature of the offense and whether it involves moral turpitude.”

The court says the board of professional responsibility must determine, according to D.C. law, if Biden engaged in moral turpitude in the course of his purchase and possession of a firearm while addicted to crack cocaine. While the D.C. Code does not offer a specific definition of moral turpitude, it says that there are only a few circumstances under which a law license can be reinstated if a Bar member is found guilty of “serious crimes.”

“If a final judgment of conviction is certified to the court, the name of the member of the bar so convicted shall be struck from the roll of the members of the bar and such person shall thereafter cease to be a member,” the D.C. Code states. “Upon the granting of a pardon to a member so convicted, the court may vacate or modify the order of disbarment.”

The suspension was instigated by the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary counsels, Hamilton Fox and Angela Walker, and by member James Phalen of the Bar’s professional responsibility board. The suspension means that Biden cannot practice law in the District of Columbia. It does not affect his ability to practice law in any other jurisdiction, if any, where he has a license. 

Biden, who lives at Malibu, California, and whose only source of income at present is his work as a self-trained artist, is not expected to face any financial repercussions from the suspension of his law license, as he hasn’t worked as a lawyer for many years. 

He worked as a consultant for a long time, using family connections to take in money from entities in Ukraine, Communist China, and other countries. He was at one point — and still could be — under investigation by Special Counsel David Weiss, who charged him in the gun case, for alleged violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act.

The first son graduated from Yale Law School, the most exclusive law school in the country, after transferring there from Georgetown University Law Center. 

President Biden has promised to neither pardon his son nor commute his sentence. Judge Maryellen Noreika has not yet scheduled a sentencing hearing for the younger Biden after he was found guilty on all counts, though she predicted after the verdict was handed down that it could happen as late as October — in the midst of the presidential campaign. 

Biden faces a maximum of 17 years in prison and a hefty fine, though as a first-time offender and recovering addict he could receive a lenient sentence such as probation or a light prison term. 

He also faces a trial in September, also on felony charges brought by Mr. Weiss, for not paying taxes on some of the millions of dollars he earned from his overseas consulting work.