Bidens Get BAD NEWS 24hrs After Unprecedented Pardon
In a surprising legal development, special counsel David Weiss has requested that the judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case in a California federal court retain the charges despite President Joe Biden’s recent presidential pardon.
The pardon, issued on Sunday, applies to Hunter Biden’s June jury convictions for falsifying information about his drug use on a federal form when purchasing a firearm. It also covers the period from January 1, 2014, to December 1, 2024, including Hunter’s September conviction on nine counts of failing to pay approximately $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019.
Hunter Biden had faced up to 17 years in prison for his tax offenses.
In a statement accompanying the pardon announcement, Hunter Biden asserted, “The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.”
Weiss countered this claim in a court filing submitted Monday, stating, “There was and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case.” He emphasized, “The defendant [Hunter Biden] made similar baseless accusations in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. Those claims were also rejected.”
Weiss further noted, “In total, eleven different [federal] judges appointed by six different presidents, including his father, considered and rejected the defendant’s claims, including his claims for selective and vindictive prosecution.”
The special counsel’s office has asked the court to mark the case file as closed with a notation acknowledging the pardon, rather than dismissing the charges outright. This approach, Weiss explained, would preserve the case record for potential future use.
“[I]t has been the practice of this court that once an Executive Grant of Clemency has been filed on the docket, the docket is marked closed, the disposition entry is updated to reflect the executive grant of clemency, and no further action is taken by the Court,” Weiss stated.
Weiss also highlighted that neither Hunter Biden nor his legal team has yet submitted the pardon to the court. He remarked, “If media reports are accurate, the Government does not challenge that the defendant has been the recipient of an act of mercy. But that does not mean the grand jury’s decision to charge him, based on a finding of probable cause, should be wiped away as if it never occurred. It also does not mean that his charges should be wiped away because the defendant falsely claimed that the charges were the result of some improper motive.”
He concluded, “No court has agreed with the defendant on these baseless claims, and his request to dismiss the indictment finds no support in the law or the practice of this district.”
In an interview with ABC News, Mark Osler, a presidential pardon expert from the University of St. Thomas, described Weiss’s filing as addressing “a technical issue — either way, the case goes away — but an important one.” Osler explained, “[Prosecutors] want the indictment to remain on the record.”
Meanwhile, The Hill reported that U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case in California, has not yet issued a decision on dismissing the charges. The outlet also noted that U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, presiding over Hunter’s gun case in Delaware, indicated her intention to terminate the proceedings once the pardon is officially documented. However, she has asked Weiss to clarify whether his office objects to dismissal in that case as well.