Hunter Biden on Wednesday filed a motion in federal court seeking internal documents exchanged between ex-President Donald Trump and top-level Department of Justice officials—including former Attorney General William Barr—that he believes could expose dirty dealings behind the gun charges he’s facing.
The investigation into Biden began in late 2018, “during the administration of then President Trump,” the filing states. Since then, “public reporting [has] reveal[ed] certain instances that appear to suggest incessant, improper, and partisan pressure applied by then President Trump” on Barr, as well as Acting and Assistant AGs Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Donoghue, to investigate and prosecute the 53-year-old Biden, come hell or high water.
In one example, the motion says Trump told Donoghue and Rosen to “figure out what to do with H[unter] Biden,” and insisted that “people will criticize the DOJ if he’s not investigated for real.” It also cites Barr’s recent memoir, in which the former AG yelled at a fixated Trump, arguing, “Dammit, Mr. President, I am not going to talk to you about Hunter Biden. Period!”
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“These confirmations of communications give more than a mere appearance that President Trump improperly and unrelentingly pressured DOJ to pursue an investigation and prosecution of Mr. Biden to advance President Trump’s partisan ambitions,” the motion alleges. “For his part, Mr. Trump has made a plethora of concerning public statements calling for an investigation or possible prosecution of Mr. Biden, both while in office and since leaving, that further suggest improper partisan, political demands were at play, either expressly or implicitly.”
Biden’s motion says it’s “clear no measure of charges against [him] will ever be enough to appease [GOP legislators] and their MAGA allies.”
“As anyone can readily tell, it is not just pressure from within the Trump-era Executive Branch that is the problem; it is also incessant, unrelenting outside interference from congressional Republicans and their allies in the prosecutorial process, which is supposed to be independent and free from political interference.”
Last month, Biden pleaded not guilty to one felony charge that he lied about not using drugs when he bought a handgun, as well as two misdemeanors over his failure to pay more than $100,000 in taxes in 2017 and 2018. The prosecution marked the first-ever criminal case brought against a sitting U.S. president’s child.
His not guilty plea came after a plea deal fell apart in July over a disagreement between the government and Biden’s legal team over the extent of his future immunity from prosecution, notwithstanding U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika’s separate concerns over the structure of the deal itself.
In Wednesday’s motion, Biden noted that after he’d agreed to the pre-trial diversion deal with prosecutors, which would have allowed him to avoid jail time, Trump publicly “blasted the agreement as a ‘sweetheart deal,’ a ‘traffic ticket,’ and a ‘massive coverup.’”
“The Hunter/Joe Biden settlement is a massive COVERUP & FULL SCALE ELECTION INTERFERENCE ‘SCAM’ THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN IN OUR COUNTRY BEFORE,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer, who the motion says “has made Mr. Biden a centerpiece of his Committee’s investigations,” also went after DOJ “for giving Mr. Biden... ‘a slap on the wrist,’” the motion goes on. “Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) called it ‘a mockery of our legal system,’ and Senator Ron Johnson said it was ‘a light slap on the wrist.’ Upon news that the parties’ agreement was not approved on July 26, Republican allies cheered and claimed responsibility, touting their role in ‘intervening’ to ‘kill” the deal.’”
House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith told Fox News that same day that “justice [was] being served,” and bellyached without evidence that a “two-tiered judicial system” had been protecting Biden and the president.
From there, GOP legislators demanded “more severe charges” against Biden, and made the case an election issue, the motion continues. This led to three felony counts on the same gun charge for which Biden had previously signed the diversion agreement, it states.
“Yet Republicans now say this is not enough,” the motion argues. “The very same day that Mr. Biden was charged in this case, Chairman Comer stated: ‘Mountains of evidence reveals that Hunter Biden likely committed several felonies and Americans expect the Justice Department to apply the law equally. Today’s charges are a very small start, but unless U.S. Attorney Weiss investigates everyone involved in fraud schemes and influence peddling, it will be clear President Biden’s DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden and the big guy.’”
Biden is asking the court to force the four men to produce all relevant documents and materials “in their possession” from Jan. 20, 2017 to present, and submit them for review by Dec. 1.
