President Biden’s re-election campaign was hit by a torpedo Tuesday when a Delaware jury convicted his son Hunter on three felony charges.

Ironically, the political fate of the most anti-gun president in American history could be settled by the firearms convictions of his son.

Individuals purchasing a firearm must sign a federal form attesting they are not a user of an unlawful drug. Hunter was convicted on two counts of lying on this form, and also of possessing the pistol for 11 days while using illegal drugs.

Three years ago, when his memoir “Beautiful Things” was published, Hunter received endless media applause for his victory laps as a recovering addict.

His lawyers effectively sought to expunge that memoir and almost all of Hunter’s prior statements. They claimed he was not a user of illicit drugs at the time he bought that .38 Special.

Since Hunter didn’t pause in the door of the gun shop to fire up his crack pipe, jurors were supposed to presume he was as clean as a hound’s tooth. 

Hunter was caught in a legal tar pit his father helped create.  

In the 1980s and 1990s, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) was among the biggest drug warriors on Capitol Hill, championing policies that sent hundreds of thousands of Americans to prison.

In a 2019 piece headlined “Joe Biden and the Era of Mass Incarceration,” the New York Times hyped Biden’s favorite fix: “Lock the S.O.B.s up!”

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As part of that crackdown, Congress prohibited anyone who uses illegal drugs from purchasing or possessing firearms.

Federal agencies have been conniving to whitewash Hunter’s crimes ever since his brother’s widow (and Hunter’s then-girlfriend) tossed the gun he bought into a Delaware trash can in 2018.

Secret Service agents descended on the gun shop that sold Hunter the firearm and sought to seize all the paperwork tied to the sale  — even though they had zero jurisdiction in the case.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for records on the Hunter Biden case because any response would violate Biden’s “privacy.”

But the biggest cover-up occurred in June 2023, when the Justice Department gave Hunter a sweetheart plea deal that would involve no jail time for his firearms offense. Instead, he would have entered a pretrial drug diversion program.

That blanket exoneration exploded in federal court after Judge Maryellen Noreika asked prosecutors and defense attorneys to explain the novel deal.

Now, Hunter could face up to 25 years in prison — though the actual sentence will almost certainly be much shorter, perhaps with no jail time at all.

But plenty of non-Bidens have been sent up the river for the same offense.

In 2019, a federal prosecutor said rapper Kodak Black needed “tough love” when he was caught making false claims on a firearms purchase form. He was sent to prison for three years. Last year, a woman in Iowa received a one-year prison sentence for the same crime, according to the Gun Owners of America.

After the Delaware jury’s verdict was announced, President Biden issued a statement: “Jill and I will always be there for Hunter,” he said.

Biden pledged not to pardon his son — a promise that has as much credibility as his oath of office to uphold the Constitution.  Remember, this is a president who brags about scorning the Supreme Court’s decision blocking his illegal federal student debt forgiveness schemes.

Meanwhile, Biden’s devotees fret. “Conviction could be [a] political burden as President Biden runs for re-election,” as the Washington Post put it.

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The verdict is devastating to the credibility of a president who has repeatedly publicly declared that his son had done “nothing wrong.”

Team Biden was doing victory laps after a New York jury convicted his opponent Donald Trump of 34 felony counts. But the Delaware verdict could open the floodgates for far more legal troubles.

Three months from now, Hunter goes on trial on nine federal tax charges, a case that rose from the dead after IRS whistleblowers revealed the Justice Department shenanigans to practically expunge unpaid taxes on millions of dollars of Biden family racketeering.

At a time when Republican congressional investigators are claiming to tie the president to the foreign payoffs, President Biden will no longer be able to quash controversy with brazenly false claims that his family received nothing from China — as he did in the final 2020 debate with Trump.

IRS whistleblowers exploded the attempt to erase Hunter’s criminal failure to pay taxes on millions of dollars of income, much of it tied to Biden family foreign racketeering.

The sordid details of Justice Department string-pulling in the tax case could obliterate the tattered remnants of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s reputation.

Two years ago, the president boasted that “No one f–ks with a Biden.” The Delaware jury verdict shatters that record of legal impunity.

After the jury handed down its decision, Hunter Biden issued a statement admitting that he was “disappointed by the outcome” but stressing that “recovery is possible by the grace of God, and I am blessed to experience that gift one day at a time.”

This nation would be blessed to experience political recovery via one jury verdict — and, in November, the election result it may affect.

James Bovard’s latest book is “Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty.”