Hunter Biden claims special counsel mistook SAWDUST for cocaine lines and insists photo was sent to his psychiatrist as ‘a joke’
Hunter Biden’s legal team has accused the Justice Department of a stunning blunder in which investigators mistook sawdust for lines of cocaine during their investigation into the president’s son.
Hunter’s attorney claimed that special prosecutor David Weiss made a mistake “straight out of a 1980s Police Academy movie.”
It came after Weiss published photos of Hunter’s iPhone and hard drive that prosecutors said were evidence he was using cocaine when he bought a gun.
Hunter’s lawyers say the image in question was actually sent to his psychiatrist by someone else as a joke.
“The plaintiff is flat out wrong – both in saying that Mr. Biden ‘took’ this photo and in claiming that it contains ‘cocaine,'” Biden’s lawyers said.
“Multiple sources have pointed out, and a review of the discovery confirms that this is actually a photo of sawdust from an expert carpenter and that it was sent to Mr. Biden, not the other way around.”
Hunter Biden’s legal team has accused the Justice Department of mistaking cocaine lines for sawdust
“More specifically, the discovery identifies this as a photo of a photo taken in the office of Mr. Biden’s then-psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow,” Hunter’s attorneys said.
According to the court documents, Dr. Ablow initially took the image from a patient, who was a master carpenter, and later texted it to Hunter.
In his text message to Hunter, the doctor wrote, “This one in my office consists of lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was addicted to coke.”
“The message accompanying that photo was intended to convey that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction,” Hunter’s lawyers wrote.
They continued, “Confusing sawdust with cocaine sounds more like a storyline from one of the Police Academy comedies of the 1980s than what you might expect in a high-profile prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, December 13, 2023
A photo of Hunter Biden’s laptop
Abbe Lowell, Hunter’s attorney, said the sawdust error “reinforces why Mr. Biden and the court could not accept what the prosecutor said ‘at face value.’
Weiss has accused Hunter Biden of crimes including lying about his drug use when he bought a gun in 2018. The president’s son has pleaded not guilty.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers accused the accuser of being “reckless” by making a “hyperbolic and sensational” claim regarding the sawdust image.
They said it would “disadvantage Mr. Biden in the public eye.”
The row over the photo arose when Hunter’s attorneys filed a 22-page document regarding the sharing of evidence between the prosecution and defense.
US President Joe Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden as they leave The Ivy restaurant in Los Angeles, California, February 4, 2024
In this courtroom sketch, Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, center, next to attorney Abbe Lowell, right, appears before Judge Mark C. Scarsi, left, in federal court, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024, in Los Angeles. Biden pleaded not guilty to federal tax charges
Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, is seen making a surprise appearance at a House Oversight Committee meeting to vote on whether Biden should be held in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a request last month to House to witness. on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 10, 2024
A photo of Hunter Biden’s phone used by prosecutors to show his drug use
The development came days after Weiss accused a former FBI informant of lying about Hunter and his father taking $5 million in bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Alexander Smirnov, 43, is charged with making a false statement and creating a false record for statements he made to the FBI in 2020. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison.
Smirnov was arrested at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas after arriving in the United States from abroad.
The charges against Smirnov could undermine Republican accusations of bribery and claims that Biden benefited financially from his son’s business dealings in Ukraine.