Hunter Biden is readying another high-profile courtroom drama on Wednesday when his lawyers will ask a judge to throw out the charges against him for failing to pay over $ 1 million in taxes. He will return to federal court in Los Angeles where a judge will consider the dismissal of the nine tax charges against him brought by special counsel David Weiss.
His lawyers have launched efforts to throw out part or all of the charges and Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi will decide the fate of the case. The charges stem from what federal prosecutors say was a four-year scheme to skip out on paying the $1.4 million he owed to the IRS and instead use the money to fund an ‘extravagant lifestyle’ that by his own admission included drugs and alcohol.
The charges span the 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 tax years. Meanwhile, Hunter Biden, 53, has also been charged in Delaware with lying in October 2018 on a federal form for gun purchasers when he swore he wasn’t using or addicted to illegal drugs. He was addicted to crack cocaine at the time. He is also accused of possessing the gun illegally and has pleaded not guilty in that case.
Federal prosecutors say Hunter repeatedly failed to pay his taxes on time, missed deadlines to pay debts he owed to the IRS and criminally evaded taxes by cooking his books and filing false returns. The Justice Department says Hunter faces up to 17 years in prison for the tax charges and 25 years for the gun charges if convicted, in dual cases that could have a devastating impact on his father’s presidential campaign.
Hunter is accused of dodging taxes on income he received from China and Ukraine – giving fodder to Republicans who have accused Hunter of corruptly profiting off overseas business dealings through his last name. For six months they’ve been probing his dealings for a reason to impeach Joe Biden. Hunter’s lawyers have seized on this, claiming Weiss ‘caved to outside pressure’ from Donald Trump and House Republicans, who demanded his prosecution.
‘Biden is being targeted because of his political and familial affiliations,’ they wrote. The indictment states that despite receiving millions in personal income and financial support from a friend, Hunter ‘ spent this money on drugs, girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes .’
Hunter’s lawyers also argued the case must be thrown out because it had been tainted by a pair of IRS agents who previously worked on the case before becoming whistleblowers and testifying in the House GOP impeachment inquiry. ‘The government’s actions in this case are beyond egregious,’ they wrote, accusing the whistleblowers of ‘vigilante justice’ and ‘taking the law into their own hands’ by leaking tax records.
The trial for the gun charges in Delaware is set to begin June 3, weeks before the June 20 trial for the tax charges in California. Last summer a proposed plea deal sensationally fell apart after questioning from a judge. The charges against him were set to be held over as part of a plea deal Hunter struck with prosecutors, in which he would admit to tax crimes for deliberately failing to file and pay his tax bill on millions of dollars of income. But Judge Maryellen Noreika in July brought up a controversial clause that would give him blanket immunity for other offenses.
