Hunter Biden, son to President Joe Biden, on Wednesday waived his right to attend a court hearing in Los Angeles that will hear arguments from his team as to why part or all of the tax charges against him should be dropped.
The Context
Hunter Biden is facing tax charges from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a case that alleges that he evaded at least $1.4 million in federal taxes between 2016 and 2019. He has pleaded not guilty to all of these charges.
The president's son was indicted in December 2023 on nine counts, including failure to file and pay taxes, false tax return and evasion of assessment, in a case brought on by the DOJ's Special Counsel David Weiss.
What to Know
Hunter Biden's legal team cited a number of reasons why their client's tax charges should be dropped, some of which blamed Weiss, a Donald Trump-appointed United States attorney for Delaware.
According to his lawyers, Hunter Biden has been selectively targeted by Weiss. "The special counsel has gone to extreme lengths to bring charges against Mr. Biden that would not have been filed against anyone else," Hunter Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement in February. Lowell accused prosecutors of having "bowed to political pressure to bring unprecedented charges."
They also argue that Weiss "was unlawfully appointed as Special Counsel," according to a filing that claimed that the funding for the special counsel's probe and prosecution was not approved by Congress.
Hunter Biden's lawyers also said that the statute of limitations for Hunter Biden's alleged failure to pay taxes in 2016 expired in April 2023 and challenged the venue of several charges, arguing that Hunter Biden was a resident of Washington, D.C., and not California, at the time of the alleged crimes.
Additionally, Hunter Biden's legal team argued that there were duplicative charges for the same tax year and that there were multiple alleged violations included in the same count.
Another argument surrounds the plea deal that fell apart in July 2023. Under that deal, Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay his federal taxes on time in 2017 and 2018, while avoiding being prosecuted for a felony gun charge—illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user.
Hunter Biden's lawyers argued that the prosecution of Hunter is barred by the plea deal, but prosecutors said that the deal never took effect.
In another filing, the legal team said that the prosecution of their client was "prejudiced" by the "unprecedented leaks" of IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler. In December 2023, Shapley and Ziegler testified before the House Ways and Means Committee as part a House Republican impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
The legal team asked U.S. District Court Judge Mark Scarsi, who is presiding over the case, to also to strike certain "inflammatory characterizations and gratuitous facts" from Hunter Biden's indictment that were "meant to depict Mr. Biden as irresponsible, frivolous, and otherwise of questionable character and integrity," arguing that these facts could confuse a jury and deny Hunter Biden a fair trial.
Newsweek reached out to Hunter Biden's lawyer via email and the DOJ via online form for comment.
The Views
Weiss slammed Hunter Biden's arguments for dismissal of his charges as a "conspiracy theory," in a filing earlier this month.
In response to the accusations that he was being pressured by Republican lawmakers to prosecute Hunter, Weiss mentioned how the president's son "testified to Congress that the Special Counsel had undermined the impeachment inquiry conducted by House Republicans."
"Which is it?" Weiss wrote. "Indeed, the defendant has no evidence to support his shapeshifting claims because the Special Counsel continues to pursue the fair, evenhanded administration of the federal criminal laws."
House Republicans are investigating President Biden for allegedly being involved with and benefitting from his son's foreign business dealings while he was vice president to former President Barack Obama. The White House has repeatedly denied these allegations and the president has called the probe a "baseless political stunt."
What's Next?
Hunter is set to go on trial for the tax charges on June 20. He is also facing three federal gun charges in a Delaware indictment, all of which he has pleaded not guilty to. The charges relate to Hunter lying about his drug use on a federal form to purchase a handgun in October 2018. The gun charges trial is scheduled for June 3.
Update 3/27/24, 5:08 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
Update 3/27/24, 5:27 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
Update 3/27/24, 5:53 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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