Judge remains unconvinced by Hunter Biden’s claim of politically motivated prosecution

A federal judge on Wednesday appeared skeptical of Hunter Biden’s legal team’s argument that federal officials have been politically motivated in their prosecution of President Joe Biden’s son.

“There is no evidence [from the defense] that influenced the prosecutors’ decision here,” Judge Mark Scarsi said on Wednesday, refuting defense attorney Abbe Lowell’s argument that “there is nothing regular about how this case was initiated [and] investigated,” according to Politico. 

Biden’s defense attorneys, led by Lowell, argued the charges against Biden should be dismissed because the president’s son has been unfairly targeted by federal prosecutors, especially after two IRS agents publicly accused the Justice Department of giving special treatment to the Biden family. Special counsel David Weiss, according to the Biden attorneys, caved to Republican pressure and levied charges against Biden that otherwise would never have been brought.

The president’s son, who was not present at the Wednesday court hearing, has been indicted on nine charges of tax evasion. He allegedly failed to file his tax returns for three years and inflated his business expenses by including his daughter’s tuition as well as payments at luxury hotels and to prostitutes. 

Federal prosecutors Derek Hines and Leo Wise slammed the defense’s assertion that politics played a role in their charges against Biden, with Hines calling it “absolutely outrageous” and Wise dismissing it as “revisionist history.”

Scarsi asked the defense to provide proof for their assertion. Lowell replied that he “[didn’t] have transparency” regarding the prosecutors’ motives and that he only had “the type of evidence that [a prosecutor] goes to a jury with every week and says ‘you can connect the dots.’”

The judge said he would rule on the Biden defense’s motion to dismiss the case by April 17.