(Los Angeles) Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who is facing two separate charges of illegal gun possession and tax evasion, asked Thursday to have the charges dismissed, citing a ruling in a case involving Donald Trump.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June in a Delaware court of illegal possession of a firearm in 2018 and is scheduled to stand trial in September in California, where he now resides, on tax evasion charges.
But with both being prosecuted by a special prosecutor appointed in August 2023, David Weiss, Hunter Biden’s lawyers are citing a ruling that quashed federal proceedings against Donald Trump.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who is in charge of the Florida trial against the former Republican president for withholding classified documents after leaving the White House, on Monday canceled the proceedings, ruling that the 2022 appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was illegal.
Without ruling on the merits, she said the appointment and funding of the special prosecutor violated sections of the Constitution dealing with appointments and expenses.
She relied in particular on the position expressed by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the groundbreaking decision of the country’s highest court on 1er July, recognizing the President of the United States with broad criminal immunity.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers presented those arguments Thursday in both courts, in Delaware and California.
“Now that this flaw has been identified and used to invalidate a special counsel case against former President Trump, Mr. Biden should get an equivalent result. Different defendants but the same constitutional defects,” they say in their Delaware appeal.
Jack Smith appealed Judge Cannon’s decision Wednesday to a federal appeals court.