Attorneys for Hunter Biden want the dismissal of a $1.4 million tax case due to political motivation

Lawyers for Hunter Biden requested on Wednesday that the tax case against him be dismissed, alleging that he engaged in a four-year conspiracy to evade paying $1.4 million in taxes while leading an opulent lifestyle.

Regarding the nine felony and minor tax crimes, the son of President Joe Biden has entered a not guilty plea. His lawyers said that the prosecution is politically driven, that the investigation was improperly handled, and that it contains some accusations from before he relocated to California, as a result of leaks from IRS officials.

Throughout the three-hour hearing, the prosecution presented the allegations as implausible. The claim that the case was contaminated by IRS officers “who I couldn’t have picked out of a lineup” was ridiculed by prosecutor Leo Wise. On the other side, defense counsel Abbe Lowell maintained that the case was unavoidably tainted by partisan politics and referred to it as “the least ordinary prosecution a person could imagine.”

U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi expressed doubts about Lowell’s assertions, telling him there wasn’t enough concrete proof for some of them. He said, “You cite a lot of things on the internet.” Scarsi said he expected to make a decision on motions for dismissal by April 17. Although Hunter Biden has admitted to being addicted to crack cocaine at the time, he has also been charged in Delaware with lying on a federal document in order to purchase a pistol in 2018 by claiming he wasn’t using or abusing illicit narcotics.

In that instance, he is also accused of unlawfully having the pistol, although he has entered a not guilty plea. June is the anticipated trial date for both cases, which are under special counsel David Weiss’s supervision. However, defense lawyers are also attempting to get the Delaware gun charges dismissed. The two sets of accusations are the result of a multi-year federal investigation that was supposed to come to an end this summer with a plea agreement that would have given Hunter Biden two years of probation in exchange for admitting guilt to misdemeanor tax crimes.

If he had kept out of trouble, the president’s son—who has now paid the back taxes with a loan—would also have avoided prosecution on the weapons accusation. Prosecutors disagree, but defense lawyers contend that immunity clauses in the agreement were signed by a prosecutor and remain in force. However, once a federal court in Delaware started to doubt the agreement, Hunter Biden was spared the spectacle of a criminal prosecution during the 2024 presidential campaign.

The gun and tax lawsuits are now advancing as part of an unparalleled convergence of legal and political drama: The Justice Department is aggressively pursuing charges against both the presumed Republican candidate, Donald Trump, and the son of the Democratic president as the November election approaches. Hunter Biden’s first plea agreement with prosecutors was mocked by Republicans, including Trump, as a “sweetheart deal.”

The former president is dealing with his own legal issues, having been charged with 91 crimes in four different instances, including conspiring to rig the 2020 election so that Joe Biden would win. Concurrent with Hunter Biden’s criminal proceedings are House Republicans’ as-yet-failed attempts to connect his father’s financial transactions to Biden. Republicans are attempting to have President Biden impeached on the grounds that he and his son conspired to sell influence.

Though concerns about the ethics of the Biden family’s foreign business transactions have surfaced, there is no proof that Joe Biden, either as president or as vice president, misused his position or took bribes. When the House Republicans began their investigation into Biden’s impeachment last year, they mostly relied on uncorroborated reports from an FBI informant made public by Senate Republicans, which purported to disclose $10 million in payments made to the Bidens by the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma.

In a case that Weiss was also in charge of, Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, was taken into custody last month. In response to accusations that he made up the bribery claims, he has entered a not guilty plea. While he was present at the hearing on Wednesday, his counsel remained silent in the courtroom. Hunter Biden, 53, faces up to 17 years in jail if found guilty of the tax charges.