A federal judge has denied Hunter Biden’s attempts to throw out his felony tax indictment, paving the way for a trial in June.
The judge, who was skeptical of Hunter Biden’s arguments at a hearing last week in Los Angeles, rejected eight motions to dismiss in a sweeping 82-page ruling issued Monday.
President Joe Biden’s son has pleaded not guilty to all nine charges. He is accused of repeatedly failing to file and pay his taxes on time and engaging in an illegal tax-evasion scheme by filing false tax returns and cooking the books on his company’s payroll.
In a victory for special counsel David Weiss, US District Judge Mark Scarsi rejected Hunter Biden’s arguments that the felony indictment was politically motivated.
Scarsi said that Hunter Biden’s lawyers provided “virtually no evidence” to back their theory that Weiss’ team exhibited anti-Biden bias, and that a “rigorous standard” must be met before an indictment can be thrown out on these grounds.
The judge blasted Hunter Biden’s lawyers for relying on a hodgepodge of news articles and social media posts to push the theory that Weiss brought the charges because he caved to pressure from former President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans — which Weiss’ prosecutors have called a “conspiracy theory.”
“The motion is remarkable in that it fails to include a single declaration, exhibit, or request for judicial notice,” the judge wrote. “Instead, Defendant cites portions of various Internet news sources, social media posts, and legal blogs. These citations, however, are not evidence.”
Scarsi also roundly rejected Hunter Biden’s assertion that Weiss was improperly appointed special counsel, writing that Hunter Biden’s attorneys offered “no convincing reason” as to why he shouldn’t have been appointed.
Hunter Biden’s lead attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement after the rulings, “We strongly disagree with the Court’s decision and will continue to vigorously pursue Mr. Biden’s challenges to the abnormal way the Special Counsel handled this investigation and charged this case.”
As he suggested at last week’s hearing, Scarsi also disagreed with Hunter Biden’s arguments that the case should be thrown out because of the actions of two Internal Revenue Service agents who previously worked on the investigation. Those IRS officials have since become whistleblowers, accused prosecutors of going soft on Hunter Biden, and were featured at GOP-run congressional hearings.
“Aside from failing to substantiate his allegations that the (IRS) agents influenced the prosecutorial decision with anything but speculation, Defendant offers no case in which a court exercised supervisory powers to dismiss an indictment due to conduct that impacts the fundamental decision to prosecute,” the judge wrote, concluding that the theory lacked merit and that he wouldn’t have the power to toss the case even if it did.
Scarsi also shot down attempts by Hunter Biden to dismiss some of the lesser charges in the nine-count indictment. The judge ruled that the statute of limitations hadn’t run out on one of the misdemeanor charges relating to Hunter Biden’s 2016 taxes. He also ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence disputing Hunter Biden’s California residency to throw out four counts over potential jurisdictional problems.
Scarsi’s findings offer vindication for Weiss, a Republican who was appointed by Trump to his former post as the US attorney in Delaware. Weiss’ prosecutors have defended the integrity and nonpartisan nature of their work — and said in court last week that it was “insulting” to suggest they were taking their cues from Trump or GOP lawmakers. (Scarsi is also a Trump appointee, though he was confirmed by the Senate in a broad bipartisan vote.)
In a slew of court filings after the tax case was initially brought, defense attorneys for Hunter Biden claimed that Weiss was improperly appointed, alleged that the case is political, and pushed the judge to dismiss the case for conflicting with a plea deal that collapsed over the summer.
Weiss ridiculed Hunter’s arguments as legally baseless and steeped in a “conspiracy theory.”
As part of his ruling Monday, Scarsi found that while Hunter Biden and the prosecutors did strike a diversion agreement over the summer in which the president’s son would avoid tax charges, that agreement — and its immunity provisions — never went into effect because the line where a probation officer was supposed to sign is blank.
The deal that Weiss and Hunter Biden struck, Scarsi wrote, stipulated a probation officer must sign the paperwork for the agreement to take effect.
“Nothing in the text of the Diversion Agreement tethers the very existence of the agreement, or any party’s acceptance of the agreement, to the Probation Officer’s approval,” Scarsi wrote, but Weiss and Hunter Biden “made their performance of their obligations contingent upon the event of her signing.”
What was left, Scarsi wrote, is a “Court’s Schrödinger’s cat-esque” agreement that does not give Hunter Biden immunity in its current form.
Special counsel prosecutors separately indicted Hunter Biden in Delaware in connection with three alleged gun crimes. (He denies wrongdoing.) The gun trial is slated to begin June 3, which would be a few weeks before the scheduled June 20 trial date for the tax charges in California.
The judge in Delaware hasn’t ruled yet on Hunter Biden’s attempts to throw out that case.
This story has been updated with additional details.
