Hunter Biden’s effort to cast his prosecution on federal tax charges as politically motivated was met with skepticism in court on Wednesday.
Hunter Biden’s defense attorneys led by Abbe D. Lowell presented arguments to U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi Wednesday for weakening or shutting down the case entirely, Politico reported. The president’s son was not present in the Los Angeles federal courthouse where the arguments took place.
Lowell and his co-counsels have brought forward numerous motions to dismiss the tax charges against Biden, including an argument that Biden is being selectively prosecuted by special counsel David Weiss because of political pressure.
“There is nothing regular about how this case was initiated [and] investigated,” Lowell said. Scarsi pressed Lowell for concrete evidence to support his claims, and remarked “there is no evidence [from the defense] that influenced the prosecutors’ decision here.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of Hunter Biden’s father, selected Weiss to be special counsel in August once Hunter Biden’s guilty plea deal and pretrial diversion agreement fell apart in Delaware.
Scarsi later asked point-blank “is there evidence that pressure from outside entity influenced the prosecution?” He pointed out the claims by Biden’s attorneys were based on the political firestorm surrounding Hunter Biden and questioned if Lowell could prove the Justice Department bent to political pressure.
“What I have is the type of evidence that [a prosecutor] goes to a jury with every week and says ‘you can connect the dots,’ Lowell retorted.
Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, and Biden’s legal team agreed to a plea deal for two tax misdemeanors and a pretrial diversion agreement for a single felony gun offense. The plea deal and diversion agreement collapsed in court when U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned the scope of a prosecutorial immunity provision inside the diversion agreement.
The two sides argued about whether the pretrial diversion agreement is still in effect, giving Biden immunity from prosecution. Leo Wise, one of the federal prosecutors, said the defense’s arguments were “revisionist history” and Derek Wise, another member of Weiss’s team, said it was “absolutely outrageous” to suggest the Justice Department is being guided by Trump and other partisan actors, Politico reported.
Weiss and his team of prosecutors have called the selective prosecution claims a “conspiracy theory” and pointed out former president Donald Trump is no longer in office.
“From this fairly unremarkable set of procedural events, the defendant concocts a conspiracy theory that the prosecution has ‘upped the ante’ to appease politicians who have absolutely nothing to do with the prosecution and are not even members of the current Executive Branch,” the Justice Department said in a court filing earlier this month. They have also argued the diversion agreement is not binding because it was never enacted by probation officers.
House Republicans are investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings as part of the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. Last month, Hunter Biden testified before congress and confirmed his father met foreign business partners.
Hunter Biden is fighting nine federal tax charges, three felonies and six misdemeanors, for allegedly failing to pay over $1 million of taxes during the 2016-19 tax years and filing false returns, his tax indictment lays out. At the same time, Biden faces three federal gun charges in Delaware for purchasing a handgun while he was addicted to drugs.
He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and his trial for the gun charges is set to begin the week of June 3.