Hunter Biden’s defense team has raised eyebrows after playing a literal Trump card at a recent court hearing in California.
Lawyers representing President Joe Biden’s son had appealed for U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, a Donald Trump appointee, to throw out tax charges leveled at the Republican Party bugbear ahead of his trial next month, on the basis that a separate case against Trump himself had been tossed on similar grounds.
The Associated Press reports that the claim related to Florida proceedings against the former president over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Trump’s defense had successfully argued that the Justice Department illegally appointed Jack Smith as special counsel in the case, which resulted in it being dismissed last month.
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Hunter Biden’s team proposed the same ought to apply to his forthcoming trial for allegedly dodging at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years, given the special counsel behind the prosecution, David Weiss, had not yet been appointed when he brought those charges against the disgraced businessman.
Scarsi had earlier slammed Biden’s lawyers for providing “false statements” on the timing of the charges, even threatening to sanction them for “misrepresenting the history of the case” by previously claiming no charges were brought before Weiss came onboard the investigation.
Given they had since changed tack, saying they’d “never tried to mislead” the court, the judge wrote on Monday he wouldn’t be taking action against them but nevertheless noted their “conduct warrants an admonition: candor is paramount” before promptly dismissing their latest bid to have the case thrown out.
When the trial commences next month, it will be the second time Hunter Biden has been in court this year, following his conviction on three felony gun charges in Delaware earlier in June, for which he could now face up to 25 years in prison.
The California case will also come after the House GOP’s latest attack against the Biden family. Reports emerged on Monday of an almost 300-page congressional dossier on Hunter Biden’s alleged role at the heart of a supposed “conspiracy,” allegedly encompassing “impeachable conduct” on part of his father, though the noise is unlikely to amount to much during the brief period the president now has left in office.
