Special Counsel David Weiss on Monday rejected President Biden's claims that his troubled son Hunter Biden was “selectively and unfairly prosecuted” for federal tax and gun crimes.
“The government does not dispute that the defendant received clemency, but it does not dispute that the grand jury's decision to indict him based on a finding of probable cause was dismissed as if it had never happened.'' It doesn't mean it should be done.” Weiss wrote In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the judge overseeing Hunter's tax case argued that charges against his eldest son should not be dismissed despite the presidential pardon.
“Also, just because a defendant falsely alleges that the charges are somehow ulterior motive does not mean that the defendant's charges should be dismissed,” the special counsel added. “No court has ever agreed with a defendant regarding baseless allegations.” And his request to dismiss the charges has no support in the law or practice in this district. ”
Biden, 82, pardoned his disgraced 54-year-old son on Sunday, citing that Hunter had received “special treatment” from his Justice Department.
“From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere in the decisions of the Department of Justice, and I kept that promise even as I watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted,” the president wrote in the pardon announcement. . .
“No reasonable person considering the facts of Hunter's case could come to any other conclusion than that Hunter was chosen solely because he is my son, and that is wrong,” the commander-in-chief said. added.
Biden also argued that Weiss' prosecution of Hunter amounted to a “miscarriage of justice.”
In his filing, Weiss noted that the judges in Hunter's California tax case and Delaware gun trial rejected Hunter's “nonsensical” argument that his prosecution was selective.
“There is and has never been any evidence of retaliatory or selective prosecution in this case,” Weiss said in a tax filing.
“Defendants have made similar baseless charges in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware,” he added. “Those claims were also rejected. In explaining its reasons, the Delaware court exposed the frivolous nature of defendant's selective prosecution claims.”
In April, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected Hunter's bid to dismiss the federal firearms charges, saying his claims of selective prosecution were “factually flawed.”
“The executive branch that indicted the defendant is headed by the defendant’s father, the incumbent president,” Norieka wrote. “The Attorney General who heads the Department of Justice is appointed by and reports to the defendant's father, and that attorney general is responsible for indicting the defendants on the charges challenged in this case while the defendant's father was still a sitting president. We appointed a special prosecutor who made the decision.”
“Defendant's claim is, in effect, that his father targeted him because he was his son, and this claim is nonsense based on the facts here,” she continued.
“Regardless of whether Congressional Republicans attempted to influence the executive branch, there is no evidence that they were successful in doing so, and in any event, the executive branch prosecuting defendants was (and still is) '', Norieka added.
The eldest son pleaded guilty in September to nine charges related to $1.4 million in unpaid taxes, and in June was charged with possessing a firearm while under the influence of illegal drugs and convicted on three federal gun charges. received.
Mr. Hunter was scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12 in the gun case and Dec. 16 in the tax case.
