Judge Considers Sanctioning Hunter Biden’s Attorneys for ‘False Statements’ about Special Counsel

A federal judge in California is weighing sanctions on Hunter Biden’s attorneys for making false statements about when special counsel David Weiss brought charges against him.

Judge Mark Scarsi ordered Biden’s attorneys on Wednesday to give him an explanation for why he should not sanction them for falsely claiming Weiss never brought charges against Hunter Biden until he became special counsel. Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, and his team are prosecuting Hunter Biden in California on tax-evasion charges and secured a conviction against him last month for three federal gun charges in Delaware.

“The Court orders Mr. Biden’s counsel to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed for making false statements in the motion,” Scarsi said.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers filed motions in California and Delaware last week requesting all the charges against their client be dismissed, based on Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling in the classified-documents case against former president Donald Trump, which found special counsel Jack Smith to be unconstitutionally appointed.

In the motion seeking to dismiss the tax charges, Biden’s attorneys claimed multiple times that Weiss “brought no charges” in his capacity as Delaware U.S. Attorney, a position he is now holding simultaneously with his special counsel role.

The claims are false, Scarsi noted, because Weiss brought two misdemeanor charges against Hunter Biden in Delaware last summer before Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him special counsel. Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty last summer to two tax misdemeanors paired with a pretrial diversion agreement for a single gun felony.

“These statements, however, are not true, and Mr. Biden’s counsel knows they are not true,” Scarsi said.

“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,” he added.

The plea deal and diversion agreement fell apart after Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned a prosecutorial immunity provision inside the diversion agreement. Weeks later, Garland appointed Weiss special counsel, paving the way for the subsequent gun and tax prosecutions.

Prior to the plea deal collapsing, two IRS agents came forward with detailed whistleblower allegations of misconduct from Justice Department officials throughout the long-running investigation into Hunter Biden. The whistleblower allegations have since been substantiated by troves of documents turned over to the House Ways and Means Committee, and testimony from DOJ, FBI, and IRS officials involved with the investigation, including Weiss himself.

One of the primary whistleblower allegations, Los Angeles U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada’s refusal to cooperate with Weiss on potentially prosecuting Hunter Biden, was mentioned by Hunter Biden’s attorneys in their motion to have the charges dismissed. Biden is suing the IRS over the whistleblower disclosures they believe are illegal and have raised the issue to Weiss’s office.

Hunter Biden was convicted in June on three federal gun charges for lying about his drug usage on gun paperwork and possessing a firearm during a time period when he was addicted to crack cocaine almost six years ago. His sentencing is set to take place later this year, and the tax trial is scheduled to begin in early September.

Scarsi also noted a previous motion from Biden’s attorneys acknowledging the prior charges Weiss brought against him and emphasized the importance of the misstatements about when Weiss brought the charges.

“The misstatements in the current motion are not trivial. 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,” Scarsi asserted, referring to Cannon’s ruling in Florida.

Weiss’s status as a U.S. Attorney, a Senate-confirmed officer of the United States, complicates the argument that his special counsel appointment is unconstitutional under the appointments clause of Article II. Smith was a private citizen prior to becoming special counsel for the federal prosecutions against Trump.

Biden’s attorneys have seven days to respond to Scarsi’s order.