Special Prosecutor David Weiss says Hunter Biden’s tax crimes cannot be dismissed – despite his father’s presidential pardon.
Hunter’s lawyers filed papers asking a California judge to dismiss the case as soon as Joe Biden pardoned him on Sunday.
But in a response on Monday, Weiss, the senior Justice Department official who ran the prosecutions against the felon First Son, argued that it’s not that simple.
In their filing, Weiss and his prosecutors Leo Wise and Derek Hines slammed Hunter’s lawyers for trying to ‘blot out guilt’ and erase the shocking deeds he admitted to in court.
They said that the court should instead close the case with a note acknowledging Hunter’s presidential pardon, but leaving his guilty plea on the record, along with the official finding that prosecutors’ charges of debauchery, deliberate tax-dodging and political perversion were true.
The DoJ officials accused Hunter’s hotshot Washington DC attorney Abbe Lowell of ‘misrepresent[ing] the law’ adding that ‘Nothing requires the dismissal of the indictment in this case.’
They quoted previous cases involving Donald Trump’s presidential pardons, such as for Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn, where judges ruled ‘a pardon does not blot out guilt or expunge a judgment of conviction.’
Weiss also made what could be seen as a veiled jab at President Biden, who claimed in a statement on Sunday along with his pardon to his son, that Hunter’s prosecutions were politically motivated.
‘There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case,’ Weiss wrote, adding that those claims were ruled by courts as ‘unmoored from any evidence or even a coherent theory’.
‘The defendant filed eight motions to dismiss the indictment, making every conceivable argument for why it should be dismissed, all of which were determined to be meritless,’ Weiss said.
He pointed to the California federal judge Mark Scarsi’s previous ruling, that the defense’s claims that Hunter was singled out for political reasons were ‘without any evidence’.
‘The defendant made similar baseless accusations in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. Those claims were also rejected,’ Weiss wrote.
The Special Prosecutor said that instead of dismissing the case, the usual practice is 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.’
That way, Hunter’s confession to the charges laid out in a 56-page indictment filed December last year would remain on the record.
The First Son admitted he failed to pay taxes on millions earned from shady overseas business deals with criminal Chinese businessmen, a Ukrainian oligarch and other foreigners, instead blowing the cash on drugs, prostitutes, and a lavish lifestyle.
On Monday, conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation released a statement urging House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer to subpoena Hunter to testify again – arguing that the pardon could end up painting him into a corner over potential perjury.
‘What can Congress do after Hunter’s Pardon? Rep. James Comer could immediately subpoena Hunter to a new deposition,’ the Foundation, which has helped investigate Hunter, said in the statement.
‘If Hunter doesn’t show up that’s a crime which is not covered by the pardon.
‘If Hunter does show up he cannot invoke his Fifth Amendment rights for the time period covered by the pardon.’
Usually, anyone has the right to refuse to answer a question that would incriminate them, under the US constitution’s fifth amendment.
But the think tank says Hunter’s pardon for any crimes in the last 10 years means that he would have to answer questions about that decade honestly or open himself up to perjury charges.
‘He should be asked about his perjury in his prior deposition that appears to have been designed to protect the Biden Crime Family and appears to have been rewarded with a pardon,’ the statement said.
‘If he lies again then that’s not covered by the pardon and a fair and impartial DOJ could prosecute.
‘Hunter was just the bagman. He was the useful addict. Others like President Biden and Jim Biden must answer for their part in the Biden Crime Family as well.’