Hunter Biden’s top lawyer Abbe Lowell tries to convince LA federal judge to dismiss tax

Hunter Biden‘s attorneys appeared in Los Angeles federal court on Wednesday in a bid to get his tax crimes case dismissed – with Special Counsel David Weiss watching from the public benches.

The First Son’s attorneys were attempting to convince LA federal judge Mark Scarsi to dismiss the nine-count tax crimes case filed against him by Special Counsel David Weiss.

But two hours into the afternoon hearing, Hunter’s top lawyer Abbe Lowell appeared to be on the back foot, with Judge Scarsi telling him there was not ‘any evidence’ filed for some of his legal arguments beyond a timeline.

Justice Department prosecutor Leo Wise and Lowell traded blows, with Wise admonishing Lowell for appearing to call him a ‘rank partisan’ and Lowell accusing the Justice Department of ‘succumbing’ to pressure from Republican lawmakers to push a ‘vindictive’ prosecution on the First Son.

Lowell also argued that the whole prosecution was invalid due to the alleged improper appointment of David Weiss as Special Counsel while he was still a US Attorney – as he sat watching in a blue suit from the front row of the public seating in the LA court.

Hunter himself did not make an appearance at the hearing, that is set to decide whether he will face a trial scheduled for June.

The First Son’s attorneys were attempting to convince LA federal judge Mark Scarsi to dismiss the nine-count tax crimes case filed against him by Special Counsel David Weiss.

In the past two months Winston & Strawn defense attorneys Abbe Lowell and Angela Machala filed a flurry of motions claiming:

1. The prosecution is a political witch hunt under pressure from Republican lawmakers and Donald Trump
2. Hunter’s ‘sweetheart’ plea deal shot down by a Delaware judge was still in force
3. The statute of limitations had expired on Hunter’s alleged crimes
4. Los Angeles was the incorrect venue to try his case
5. Weiss was improperly appointed, making any prosecution he launches invalid

6. IRS whistleblowers who shared case information with Congress ruined the case by going out of bounds

Weiss and his deputies, Leo Wise and Derek Hines, countered all the claims with their own filings, painting Hunter’s attorneys as resorting to desperate and erroneous legal arguments rather than facing a jury.

Hunter’s team expressed outrage at what they claim is the Justice Department reneging on a plea agreement that would have let him off with no jail time and effective immunity for other potential past crimes.

The deal fell apart at a dramatic hearing on July 26 when Delaware federal judge Maryellen Noreika exposed disagreements between prosecutors and Hunter’s legal team over his protection from new charges – such as for illegal foreign lobbying.

Weiss’ team argue that the agreement was only a ‘draft’, explicitly requiring signoff from the US chief probations officer that never occurred.

Hunter was indicted in December for three felonies and six misdemeanors. The president’s son is accused of deliberately evading tax, falsifying his returns, and failing to pay $1.4million on time – instead spending the money on a ‘lavish lifestyle’.

The charges span the tax years of 2016 through 2019, and could land him with up to 17 years prison.

Lowell told the judge in legal filings that Hunter’s charges for failure to pay tax in 2016 were beyond the five-year statute of limitations.

But Wise shot back with papers saying that the First Son’s lack of payment only became ‘willful’ – and thus criminal – in 2020, meaning the clock started much later.

Hunter’s attorneys claim he did not live in California in 2018, meaning tax charges cannot be filed against him there.

But data from Hunter’s abandoned laptop shows he spent significant time there during that period, and prosecutors argue that he lived both in Wilmington, Delaware and Los Angeles in 2018.

In an apparent slam-dunk, Weiss’ team wrote to judge Scarsi on March 25: ‘The defendant moved to California in the first week of April 2018 and expressed his intention to stay in California in a text message that he sent from California to his sister-in-law on April 12, 2018, writing, ‘I’m staying here indefinitely.’

Some legal filings have been sealed due to ongoing investigations of other suspects – adding intrigue to the case, and the possibility of new indictments.

‘The redacted information contained in the filing and the sealed exhibits relates to a potential ongoing investigation(s)’ prosecutors wrote in a legal submission this month, adding they are ‘not references to any investigation of [Hunter].’

In January, Weiss’ team charged former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov with lying, claiming he acted as a Russian double agent. Smirnov denies the charges.

The informant became a key figure in the Biden investigation when he told his handler in 2020 that Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky bragged to him about paying $10 million in bribes to then-Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter for killing a criminal probe into his gas company Burisma.

Since last year, top Republicans have been investigating Joe Biden’s links to Hunter’s shady overseas deals with the aim of impeaching the President.

Lowell claims that ‘political pressure from President Trump and his MAGA allies’ was the only reason Weiss filed charges against Hunter.

Weiss’ team say they had already been investigating Hunter for years, and were willing to strike a deal with him until he pleaded not guilty to alleged gun crimes in Delaware in July.

Hunter’s California tax indictment, filed December 7, states that despite receiving millions in personal income and financial support from a friend, he ‘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‘.

‘The Defendant spent approximately $1million in 2016, $1.4million in 2017, $1.8million in 2018, and $600,000 in 2019,’ the indictment alleges.

Hunter made more than $7 million in gross income between 2016 and 2020, according to the documents.

Prosecutors say he also received around $1.2million ‘in financial support to fund his extravagant lifestyle’ in 2020 alone, from his ‘sugar brother’ Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris.

Morris’ total support to Hunter is at least $4.9 million, according to Congressional testimony from IRS agent Joseph Ziegler, who investigated Hunter for five years before blowing the whistle on the DOJ’s alleged lackluster prosecution.