Hunter Biden Seeks to Have Federal Tax Charges Dismissed, Asks Judge to Remove ‘Extravagant Lifestyle’ Details from Indictment

Hunter Biden’s legal team filed a barrage of motions to dismiss his federal tax charges in California on Tuesday night, including one motion attacking IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.

Biden’s lawyers filed a total of eight motions to dismiss the tax charges and another filing requesting U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi remove the mentions of his lavish lifestyle from the federal tax indictment.

“The Indictment is loaded with allegations regarding Mr. Biden’s ‘extravagant lifestyle’ and characterizations of his personal choices and spending habits (during his deep addiction) in a way meant to depict Mr. Biden as irresponsible, frivolous, and otherwise of questionable character and integrity,” the motion reads.

His attorneys specifically object to page 13 of the indictment chronicling Hunter Biden’s spending on “various women,” clothing, adult entertainment, retail purchases and rehab.

“These categories of expenditures purportedly made by Mr. Biden are not probative of any claims or issues, and these irrelevant assertions—as salacious as they may be—must be struck from the Indictment to avoid improper prejudice,” the motion adds.

In one of the motions to dismiss, Hunter Biden’s attorneys take aim at the two IRS whistleblowers for testifying about the apparent special treatment he received from the Justice Department over the course of its criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.

“This prosecution of Mr. Biden has been prejudiced by, and is the byproduct of, unprecedented leaks by two IRS agents involved in a private internal investigation and by those IRS agents’ improper disclosures of Mr. Biden’s confidential return information despite statutes designed to protect and safeguard such information,” Biden’s attorneys said. He is currently suing the IRS for the alleged illegal disclosures by Shapley and Ziegler.

The IRS whistleblowers came forward to the House Ways and Means Committee last spring and delivered closed-door testimony about their years of experience on Hunter Biden investigation. Both whistleblowers alleged federal prosecutors slow-walked and obstructed necessary investigative steps over the course of the investigation. They recommended numerous tax charges against Hunter Biden and gave detailed accounts of the evidence they accumulated to support their assessments. Ziegler and Shapley then testified publicly in July after the explosive revelations from their closed-door testimonies were publicized in late June.

Two months later, the Ways and Means Committee released a trove of documents from the whistleblowers substantiating their testimony. In December, the IRS agents testified about the Hunter Biden investigation again and Ziegler turned over more documents from his time on the case.

House Republicans said in a report published in December that testimony from DOJ, FBI and IRS officials including special counsel David Weiss supported the IRS whistleblower allegations of special treatment.

Hunter Biden was indicted on nine federal tax charges in California on December 7th including three felony offenses. He pleaded not guilty to the tax charges at an arraignment the following month. Shapley and Ziegler released a joint statement after Hunter Biden’s tax indictment expressing vindication over their decision to come forward.

In addition, Biden’s attorneys brought forth various legal arguments against the tax charges, such as improper venue, selective prosecution, duplicity, failure to state a claim, the supposedly unlawful appointment of special counsel David Weiss, and the validity of his failed pretrial diversion agreement in Delaware.

They are hoping for Scarsi to hold a hearing on March 27th to address the motions. Hunter Biden’s trial on the tax charges is scheduled to begin in June.

The improper venue argument used by Biden’s attorneys applies to the first four counts of the indictment for his alleged failure to pay and file taxes over multiple years. The failure to state a claim motion homes in on the first count based on the statute of limitations and suggests the rest of the counts should be dismissed because on the Justice Department’s legal basis for the first count.

Hunter Biden’s team filed two selective-prosecution motions, one motion applying only to the ninth count for failure to pay in 2019 and the other motion to have all the charges dismissed because of outside political pressure. Counts two, four and six of the tax indictment are considered duplicitous by Biden’s lawyers because they charge Biden on multiple counts for failing to pay in the same tax years.

President Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed David Weiss, the sitting U.S. Attorney for Delaware, special counsel on the Hunter Biden case in August. Garland testified before the House Judiciary Committee in September and repeatedly expressed confidence in the integrity of Weiss’s investigation.

The Justice Department has argued against the validity of the diversion agreement in Delaware, where Hunter Biden’s attorneys have filed similar motions to dismiss his federal gun charges. Federal prosecutors have also contested Biden’s claims of selective prosecution due to political pressure and Weiss’s supposedly unlawful appointment to special counsel.

The pretrial diversion agreement was for a single gun charge in Delaware and tied to Hunter Biden’s failed guilty plea agreement on two tax misdemeanor charges. Biden is now facing three federal gun charges in Delaware to which he has pled not guilty.

Weiss is similarly prosecuting a discredited FBI informant who alleged Hunter and Joe Biden took $10 million worth of bribes from Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.

Hunter Biden sat on Burisma’s board from 2014-2019 and at one point he made over $80,000 per month from Burisma, bank records show. His salary dropped significantly around the time Joe Biden’s vice presidency concluded, according to his tax indictment.

Alexander Smirnov, the FBI source, is facing federal charges for making false statements to FBI agents memorialized in an FBI document. The discredited informant appears to have ties to high ranking Russian intelligence operatives and other Russians connected to the Kremlin, prosecutors said Tuesday in a detention memo.

Hunter Biden’s attorneys are using Smirnov’s indictment to cast doubt on Weiss’ criminal investigation.