FILE – Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, speaks during a news conference outside the Capitol, Dec. 13, 2023, in Washington (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File).
The judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s California tax fraud case has leveled the threat of sanctions against the defense for a recent court filing that aimed to dismiss the indictment in its entirety.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi issued a 4-page show cause order chiding the attorneys representing President Joe Biden’s son “for making false statements in the motion” and directing them to explain “why sanctions should not be imposed.”
On July 18, Biden’s attorneys moved to dismiss two indictments in two jurisdictions — still-pending Golden State tax fraud charges and federal gun charges in Delaware for which he has already been convicted.
Since former President Donald Trump recently won a significant reprieve from special counsel Jack Smith’s oversight via the novel invocation of the Appointments Clause, and to a lesser extent the Appropriations Clause, of the U.S. Constitution — in the form of the Mar-a-Lago documents case being dismissed — Biden should also be granted a selfsame reprieve from the prosecutorial reach of special counsel David Weiss, the substantially similar motions argued.
Scarsi says the motion in his court is chock full of lies.
“This Court has little tolerance for lack of candor from counsel,” the court’s order reads.
Without addressing the merits of the constitutional argument, Scarsi found quite a bit wrong with the veracity of the defense’s claims in the 15-page motion to dismiss the California tax fraud case.
“In support of his motion, Mr. Biden asserts, several times, that Special Counsel Weiss ‘brought no charges [against Mr. Biden] until after he received the Special Counsel title,”” the court order reads.
The judge goes on to catalog a couple more such instances:
“Special Counsel Weiss … brought no charges in this investigation with his U.S. Attorney position but, as Special Counsel, initiated legal proceedings on both sides of the country against Mr. Biden in Delaware and California …
“Mr. Weiss … sought Special Counsel status before bringing any charges.”
Here’s how those statements are rendered in the Biden motion:
As U.S. Attorney he had years to bring whatever charges he believed were merited, but he brought no charges until after he received the Special Counsel title that he sought …
That is true of Special Counsel Weiss who brought no charges in this investigation with his U.S. Attorney position but, as Special Counsel, initiated legal proceedings on both sides of the country against Mr. Biden in Delaware and California …
Again, Mr. Weiss did not seek a delegation of authority under Section 510; he sought Special Counsel status before bringing any charges …
That, however, is not the order of events that transpired. And the court is not happy with the ahistorical motion to dismiss.
“These statements, however, are not true, and Mr. Biden’s counsel knows they are not true,” the judge notes.
In June 2023, Biden was charged by a criminal information when Weiss still served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware.
The history lesson continues as Scarsi points out what he clearly believes is a knowing lie submitted to the court.
“In his role as U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, Mr. Weiss brought charges by Information, including two of the misdemeanor offenses subsequently charged by indictment in this Court,” the order recounts. “And, in an earlier motion before this Court, Mr. Biden’s counsel recognized that U.S. Attorney Weiss brought criminal charges against Mr. Biden prior to his Special Counsel appointment.”
The court also notes that Biden’s attorneys specifically used the word “charged” at least twice when describing the charges Weiss first filed against the presidential son last summer.
A commonly known part of the tale is that Biden angled for a plea deal on those original charges — but the judge overseeing the matter was not interested in playing ball and blew the deal up in July 2023.
The parties were then sent back to the drawing board but nothing inured to the defense’s benefit. Weiss was appointed special counsel in August 2023 and Biden was indicted the very next month.
The court, while ignoring the merits of the dismissal motion, does not seem impressed by their source in terms of precedent.
“The misstatements in the current motion are not trivial,” the order goes on. “Mr. Weiss’s institution of charges against Mr. Biden in his capacity as U.S. Attorney offers a meaningful distinction between this case and the nonbinding district court decision on which Mr. Biden bases his motion. But Mr. Biden’s motion does not engage with this distinction; instead, counsel avoids the issue by misrepresenting the history of the proceedings.”
Biden’s attorneys now have until next week to explain why they get the facts wrong, the court ordered. The defense is also allowed to amend its motion to dismiss — but will still be expected to clear up the discrepancy in a separate filing.
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