LOS ANGELES (CN) — Hunter Biden has failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss charges brought by Special Counsel David Weiss for failing to pay as much as $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 through 2019.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, a Trump appointee, this week rebuffed Biden's arguments that he was entitled to immunity under a diversion agreement he reached with the Justice Department last year for an unrelated firearms violation. Scarsi also shot down Biden's arguments that his indictment was selective and vindictive because it was prompted by Republican lawmakers.
In his 81-page decision filed late Monday, the Los Angeles-based federal judge carefully parsed the diversion agreement, filed in conjunction with plea agreement involving two misdemeanor tax charges last year, that would have resolved the five-year investigation into Biden by federal prosecutors.
A judge in Delaware never signed off on the plea agreement, nor the Probation Department on the diversion deal. Republicans have bristled at the agreement, which many viewed as a sweetheart deal.
Scarsi agreed with Biden that the July diversion agreement created a binding contract between him and the Justice Department.
However, the judge noted, the Probation Department — which was to oversee Biden's compliance with the agreement and whose approval was needed for the agreement to take effect — never signed off on it. Therefore, prosecutors weren't barred from indicting Biden on the tax charges in December, the judge found.
Biden also said he was the victim of selective prosecution because, he argued, no one else who paid the IRS all taxes owed plus penalties would have been hit with three felony charges for tax evasion.
Responding to these arguments, Scarsi called Biden's motion remarkable because he hadn't provided any admissible evidence such as sworn declarations to support his argument.
Instead, Scarsi noted, Biden relied on internet news sources, social media posts and legal blogs — none of which is evidence — to make his point. That alone would be enough to deny Biden's motion, Scarsi said — though he said he nonetheless reviewed the referenced internet material to decide the motion "without unduly prejudicing defendant due to his procedural error."
Still, Scarsi wasn't persuaded that these reports and observations were enough for him to throw out the charges.
"At best, defendant draws inferences from the sequence of events memorialized in reporting, public statements, and congressional proceedings pertaining to him to support his claim that there is a reasonable likelihood he would not have been indicted but for hostility or punitive animus," the judge said.
Scarsi said he wouldn't take the unprecedented step of dismissing an indictment for violation of separation-of-powers principles based on the public statements of current and former members of the political branches of the federal government.
Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
Special Counsel Weiss's office hit the younger Biden with three felony and six misdemeanor charges in December, accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes from 2016 through 2019 and of filing a false tax return for 2018.
Hunter Biden, 54, was at the time struggling with addiction, which took a turn for the worse on the one-year anniversary of his brother’s death in 2016, according to his lawyers.
Biden paid some of his income taxes for 2016 but did not fully pay or file by the 2017 deadline. He continued to file late until he hired new accountants in 2019, who prepared and filed his late returns and helped him pay all his taxes and penalties in 2021.
Follow @edpettersson
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
