Hunter Biden’s lawyers, prosecutors headed back to court ahead of his trial on federal tax charges
LOS ANGELES — Weeks before Hunter Biden is set to go on trial, federal taxesThe legal team for President Joe Biden’s son and prosecutors appear in a California courtroom on Wednesday, where a judge will consider what evidence can be presented to the jury.
Hunter Biden is accused of scheming to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in taxes in the case that goes to trial in Los Angeles in September. It is the second criminal trial in just months for the president’s son, who convicted of three crimes in June in a separate federal case involving a 2018 gun purchase.
Prosecutors and the defense have been battling for weeks in court documents over what evidence and testimony jurors will be allowed to hear. One of the issues at stake is evidence related to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which are at the center of Republican investigations in the family of the Democratic president.
Prosecutors say they will introduce evidence detailing Hunter Biden’s business dealings with a Chinese energy conglomerate, as well as money he made serving on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Prosecutors say the evidence will show that Hunter Biden “performed almost no work in return for the millions of dollars he received from these entities.”
Special counsel David Weiss’s team also plans to tell jurors about Hunter Biden’s work for a Romanian businessmanwho prosecutors say attempted to “influence U.S. government policy” when Joe Biden was vice president.
The Public Prosecution Service wants to call a business associate of Hunter Biden as a witness to testify about the arrangement with the Romanian businessman, Gabriel Popoviciuwho, according to prosecutors, sought help from U.S. government agencies to end a criminal investigation underway in his home country.
Hunter Biden and his business partner were concerned that their “lobbying work could have political ramifications” for Joe Biden, so the arrangement was structured to “disguise the true nature of the work” from Popoviciu, prosecutors allege. Prosecutors say Hunter and two business partners distributed more than $3 million from Popoviciu.
The defense has said evidence about his foreign business dealings is irrelevant to the tax charges and would only confuse jurors. They have accused prosecutors of improperly trying to “strange, politically charged matters” in the process.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have indicated they will argue he did not act “willfully,” or with the intent to violate the law. Pointing to Hunter Biden’s well documented addiction struggle Over the years, they have argued that his drug and alcohol abuse “impaired his decision-making and judgment such that Mr. Biden was unable to form the requisite intent to commit the crimes with which he is accused.”
Prosecutors have said that while Hunter Biden dodged taxes, he lived an “extravagant lifestyle,” spending money on things like drugs, escorts, exotic cars and luxury hotels. The defense is urging the judge to keep those salacious allegations out of the trial.
“The Special Counsel would want to introduce such evidence because it is objectionable and would arouse the interest of the jury, but for the same reasons and because such evidence would distract the jury from the crimes charged, such information would also be highly damaging to Mr. Biden,” the defense attorneys wrote in the court documents.
Hunter Biden was is said to have pleaded guilty last year to commit tax crimes in a deal with prosecutors that would have allowed him to avoid prosecution in the gun case if he stayed out of trouble. But the plea deal fell apart after a federal judge in Delaware raised concerns about it, and he was subsequently indicted in the two cases.
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Richer reported from Washington.