Hunter Biden asks LA judge to toss tax case, citing dismissal of Trump case

FILE PHOTO: Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, accompanied by his attorney Abbe Lowell, left, talks to reporters as they leave a House Oversight Committee hearing as Republicans are taking the first step toward holding him in contempt of Congress, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

LOS ANGELES – Hunter Biden Thursday asked a federal judge in Los Angeles to toss the tax case against him, citing a Florida judge’s dismissal of the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump.

On Monday, a federal judge in Florida rejected the federal criminal case against Trump on the grounds that the appointment of and funding for special counsel Jack Smith as prosecutor were invalid.

Lawyers for President Joe Biden’s son are using the same argument to request that special counsel David Weiss’ tax case against the younger Biden be dismissed, along with Hunter Biden’s recent conviction in Delaware on gun charges.

“Mr. Biden brings this motion for lack of jurisdiction to challenge as unconstitutional the appointment and subsequent unlawful funding of these cases,” lawyers Abbe Lowell and Bartholomew Dalton wrote in papers filed in Los Angeles federal court.

US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas this month raised questions about Smith’s appointment, an opinion referenced by the lawyers for the president’s son.

Hunter Biden is scheduled to go on trial Sept. 5 in downtown Los Angeles on nine tax counts for allegedly refusing to pay his tax bill. He faces three felony counts, including tax evasion, and six misdemeanor counts of failure to pay taxes.

Hunter Biden, 54, of Malibu, “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” the indictment alleges.

The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the younger Biden’s request to revive a bid to have the tax charges against him tossed.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers wrote in legal filings that they believe the tax case was brought “in direct response to political pressure.” His attorneys wrote that the defendant has since paid his tax bill, plus fines, to the government.

Regarding the tax charges, the 56-page indictment says that between 2016 and Oct. 15, 2020, “the defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.”

In October, the president’s son pleaded not guilty in Wilmington, Delaware, to three counts related to lying on a federal form to acquire a Colt Cobra handgun in 2018 and for being an illegal drug user in possession of the gun.

The Delaware case alleged that Hunter Biden broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018. In July 2023, he had agreed to plead guilty there to two misdemeanor tax counts and acknowledge a firearms violation without a conviction, receiving no jail time. But the deal collapsed when the judge questioned its terms and refused to sign off on it.

Last month, the president’s son was found guilty at trial in Delaware of all three felony charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018 when, prosecutors argued, he lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

Described in the indictment as a Georgetown- and Yale-educated lawyer, lobbyist, consultant and businessperson, Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate and a Chinese private equity fund during the time of the tax allegations.

`He negotiated and executed contracts and agreements for business and legal services that paid millions of dollars of compensation to him and/or his domestic corporations, Owasco PC and Owasco LLC,” according to the indictment for tax evasion.

In addition to his business interests, the defendant was an employee of a multinational law firm, the document states.

At the time of the now-defunct plea deal in Delaware, Biden said he had forgotten to pay his taxes during a period when he was in the grip of drug addiction. (CNS)