Hunter Biden hasn't been in court this week but his lawyers have been. His trial on tax charges is set for next month and in advance of that trial his lawyers have been arguing all sorts of things, including that his case should be dismissed. That one didn't go over well with the judge.
A federal judge Monday shut down Hunter Biden’s attempt to use the controversial ruling that ended Donald Trump’s classified documents case to get his own tax evasion charges dismissed.
The decision from District Judge Mark Scarsi in Los Angeles was based entirely on technical and procedural grounds, concluding that Hunter Biden’s motion was filed too late and was a thinly veiled attempt to re-litigate a question that he previously ruled on and rejected...
“The Court already adjudicated Mr. Biden’s Appointments and Appropriations Clause challenges in his timely filed motion to dismiss … there is no reason to revisit the Court’s decision now,” Scarsi wrote.
Today there is another hearing taking place, this time to discuss what sort of evidence each side will be allowed to present at trial. Hunter's lawyers are, somewhat comically, claiming any discussion of his spending habits would amount to character assassination.
“They want to slime him,” Hunter Biden’s lawyer Mark Geragos said, arguing that Weiss was attempting to put on an “independent counsel-style salacious prosecution” and is “making him look bad” by cherry-picking the facts to push the jury toward a conviction.
“It’s actually a form of character assassination,” Geragos said.
During the hearing we also got a pretty idea of what each side will be arguing at trial. The defense planned to argue that Biden's year of drug abuse and wild partying was brought on by the childhood loss of his mother and the much more recent loss of his brother. Clearly, they are playing for sympathy in a case where the facts are not on their side. On the other hand, the prosecutors are arguing that no matter how much drugs you take, you never forget that you have to pay taxes.
Geragos called the addiction angle “the centerpiece of the defense,” saying they hoped to explain how the childhood car accident that killed his mother, and his brother’s subsequent death from brain cancer fueled his descent into alcoholism and drug abuse...
“No matter how many drugs you can take, you don’t suddenly forget that when you make $11 million, you have to pay taxes,” special counsel prosecutor Leo Wise said...
“You can spend $30,000 on a pornography website if you want – it’s not illegal,” Wise said about Biden’s alleged spending, “But you can’t claim it as a business expense.”
The judge excluded a defense expert witness who was supposed to testify about Hunter's addiction Meanwhile, the defense argued that the jury will need to know what Hunter was spending money on so they could prove he was fraudulently trying to claim these expenses as business write-offs.
The trial is expected to last about 10 days and, once again, it's not shaping up very well for Hunter Biden. He is facing three more felony charges and if convicted will almost certainly be spending some time in prison.
However, there are still a couple of wild cards here. First, he could agree to a plea deal before the court date. This would probably be the smart thing to do but obviously he hasn't done it yet. He seems to really believe all of this is political and is determined to fight.
The other possibility here is that he's willing to risk a conviction in part because he knows his dad could pardon him as he leaves office in a few more months. That or at least commute his sentence. Joe Biden has already said he would not pardon Hunter but he didn't rule out commuting his sentence. In other words, the convictions would remain but the sentence would be wiped out. No jail time even if he's found guilty on all counts.
If I had to guess, that's what I think is most likely to happen here. Hunter will be convicted (again) and, as he leaves office in January, Joe will make sure Hunter never serves any time for his crimes.
