Golden State Today

A judge presiding over the $1.4M tax evasion case against Hunter Biden is threatening to sanction his legal team for knowingly including "false statements" in their fourth attempted motion to dismiss the charges against the President's son.   

In the dismissal motion, Biden's attorneys asserted several times that Special Counsel David Weiss “brought no charges [against Mr. Biden] until after he received the Special Counsel title” – however, Judge Mark C. Scarsi said these statements are “not true, and Mr. Biden’s counsel knows they are not true.”

Scarsi said that while Weiss was U.S. Attorney for Delaware, he brought misdemeanor charges against Biden and that, in an earlier motion, Biden's lawyers acknowledged that Weiss brought criminal charges against Biden, before he was appointed as Special Counsel.

The judge provided Biden's counsel an opportunity to respond to the motion within seven days or be subject to unspecified sanctions. Such sanctions would no doubt prove a serious setback to Biden's attempt to have the charges against him dropped.

In their response filing on Sunday, Biden's counsel explained they would amend the language in the previous dismissal motion and replace the word “charges” with “indictments.” Further, they insisted that their use of the original language was made innocently, and not out of any attempt to mislead the Court.

This latest potential setback for Biden comes after his attorneys' three previously failed attempts to dismiss the case, with attorneys this time arguing that the appointment of Special Council Weiss was allegedly illegal.

Biden's attorneys had referenced a recent decision from U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, which threw out criminal charges in President Donald Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, due to her finding that its Special Counsel, Jack Smith, had not been properly appointed under the law and that Congress’s part in the appointment process would be removed if his selection stood. 

In reference to Biden's case, his counsel argued that Weiss's appointment violated the Appointment Clause and Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution. However, Scarsi explained a notable difference in those scenarios, as Smith was appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and not appointed by Congress, whereas Weiss had been chosen by the legislature to be U.S. Attorney for the State of Delaware prior to being named Special Counsel in this case.

Federal prosecutors called the argument from Biden's legal team “invented deficiencies.”

If Biden were to be found guilty of the tax evasion charges against him, he would be facing 17 years in prison. 

In June, Biden was convicted of three felony counts related to his illegal purchase of a gun while under the influence of drugs in 2018. On those charges, he faces up to 25 years in prison and a fine of $750,000 at his sentencing in October.