(Washington) A federal judge in California is threatening to sanction Hunter Biden’s lawyers, saying they made “false statements” in a court filing asking him to dismiss the tax fraud case against President Joe Biden’s son.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi accused lawyers for the Democratic president’s son of “distorting the story” of the case when they said in court papers filed last week that no charges were filed in the investigation until Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss was appointed special counsel in August 2023.
“These statements, however, are not true, and Mr. Biden’s attorney knows they are not true,” wrote Mr. Scarsi, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President Donald Trump.
The judge noted that Mr. Weiss had not yet been appointed special counsel when he charged Hunter Biden with tax crimes in a plea deal that fell through last year. Mr. Scarsi ordered Hunter Biden’s lawyers to explain why they should not be sanctioned.
Attorney Mark Geragos told The Associated Press on Thursday that Hunter Biden’s legal team would respond to the judge, but that it had not made any false statements.e Geragos noted that Mr. Weiss, as the U.S. attorney for Delaware, had no authority to file tax fraud charges in California until he was appointed special counsel.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers made the statement in a court motion seeking to dismiss the case, in which the president’s son is accused of conspiring to avoid paying $1.4 million in taxes and is scheduled to go to trial in September.
The lawyers also cited a decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissing a separate lawsuit against Donald Trump in Florida because she said special counsel Jack Smith, who filed the charges against Trump, was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.
They argued that the same logic should apply to his client’s cases and should result in the dismissal of the Los Angeles tax evasion case and a separate Delaware gun case in which he was convicted on three counts.
Mr. Smith’s team appealed Mr. Cannon’s dismissal to a federal appeals court in Atlanta, arguing that the Justice Department followed longstanding precedent — for example, the Trump-era appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russian election interference that was upheld by the courts.
In June, Delaware jurors convicted Hunter Biden of lying about his drug use in 2018 on a federal form to buy a gun he had in his possession for about 11 days. The tax fraud case in California, where he lives, involves at least $1.4 million in taxes that prosecutors say went unpaid over four years. The back taxes have since been paid.