Legal analyst and attorney Jonathan Turley argued Sunday that a recent Department of Justice (DOJ) filing "annihilates" arguments from Hunter Biden's legal team seeking to have certain tax charges dismissed.
In December, the DOJ announced a tax-related indictment against Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, in California, leveling three felonies and six misdemeanors against him, alleging that he attempted to avoid paying roughly $1.4 million in personal taxes between 2016 and 2019. The president's son pleaded not guilty to the charges at an arraignment hearing in Los Angeles on January 11.
In response to this new indictment, Hunter Biden's legal team submitted a filing requesting that the charges be dropped, arguing that the case against him was "politically motivated" and that the additional charges were brought against them to appease conservative voices in the government. Republican lawmakers have long attempted to leverage the younger Biden's personal troubles, legal issues, and business dealings against his father, but these efforts have largely failed over the past several years.
On Friday, federal prosecutors filed a motion opposing the one from Hunter Biden's team, calling their argument "conspiratorial" and "nothing more than a house of cards." The case against him has been overseen by DOJ special counsel David Weiss, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, since 2018.
"The defendant's conspiratorial 'upped the ante' claim is nothing more than a house of cards," the motion from Weiss' office read. "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."
In a post on his website on Sunday, Turley wrote that the new filing from Weiss' office "annihilates" the arguments put forward by Hunter Biden's team. In his summation, the filing accuses the defense of "outright lying to the court," with Weiss arguing that claims made in the filing are "patently false, unsupported by evidence, and belied by his own letter and representations in his filings in the Delaware case."
Hunter Biden also pleaded not guilty to three felony charges related to a 2018 firearm purchase. Federal prosecutors alleged he lied about not being addicted to drugs when purchasing a gun, despite knowing that statement was "false," therefore making the transaction illegal, according to a September indictment.
Turley also highlighted on Sunday a notable portion of the prosecution's filing in which they brought up a memoir written by Hunter Biden, in which they claim he "made countless statements proving their crimes and drawing further attention to their criminal conduct." The legal analyst himself noted that "when he published the book, some of us noted that he was making statements against his own interest in possible prosecutions."
"The filing annihilates the public claims of Hunter and his allies. It is the difference between making a case in the court of public opinion and making a case in an actual court of law," Turley wrote.
Newsweek reached out to Hunter Biden's legal team via email on Sunday for comment. Any responses received will added to this story in a later update.
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Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more
