LOS ANGELES (CN) — Hunter Biden’s lawyer accused special prosecutors of tryin to “slime” the president’s son, on Wednesday, as the two sides sparred over various pretrial motions ahead of Biden’s tax evasion trial, which is set to start in two weeks.
“They are painting a portrait for the jury of someone who just plopped down in West Hollywood doing cocaine,” defense attorney Mark Geragos told the judge. “It’s actually a form of character assassination.”
Special Counsel David Weiss accuses President Joe Biden’s 54-year-old son of failing to file and pay taxes and filing false tax returns, thus avoiding some $1.4 million in taxes over the course of four years, from 2016 to 2019.
According to prosecutors in the indictment, the younger Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills.” The indictment, along with his conviction, in June, of federal gun charges, has become fodder for right-wing politicians and media commentators seeking lambast the president.
Geragos said during Wednesday’s hearing that Biden’s struggles with addiction will be the “centerpiece of the defense.” Whereas prosecutors will seek to paint Biden as a hedonistic party boy, Geragos will tell the jury that Biden was in the “throes of addiction” to drugs and alcohol.
Much of the case, then, will focus not on whether or not Biden claimed certain personal expenses as business expenses — that much is fairly well established — but on whether Biden did it purposely and knowingly, and whether or not he had “diminished capacity,” because of his addiction.
“If he was trying to avoid paying taxes, he never would’ve filed,” Geragos argued. “He had every intention of cleaning up his life, of doing the filings, of paying his taxes.”
Assistant Special Counsel Leo Wise was openly dismissive of the idea that addiction was a defense for tax evasion, saying, “No matter how many drugs you take, you don’t suddenly forget that when you make $11 million, you have to pay taxes.”
Geragos had wanted to call an expert witness to testify about the cycle of addiction and the role that Biden’s childhood trauma —stemming from his mother and younger sister dying in a car crash in which he and his older brother Beau Biden, who was also in the car, were badly injured but survived — can play.
But U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, a Donald Trump appointee, agreed with prosecutors that the expert testimony wasn’t relevant. But Geragos still insisted that he could introduce Biden’s childhood trauma as cause of his addiction if he called Hunter Biden to testify.
“The accident I still think is out of bounds,” said Wise. “How the defendant could say, that caused me to do tax evasion 40 years later — that is wild.”
“If i’m going to put him on the stand, it’s gonna come in,” Geragos said. “It triggered the original trauma.”
Then, not for the first time, he took a personal swipe at Wise: “More power to Mr. Wise that he’s never had anyone close to him with substance abuse.”
The judge ruled that the 1972 car crash was “too far afield,” and couldn’t be brought up, adding: “It would only come in for jury sympathy.” He did say that Beau Biden’s death from brain cancer in 2025 could be raised.
Geragos, meanwhile, asked the judge to limit the prosecution from presenting some of the more salacious evidence about Biden’s behavior over the years, including rampant cocaine use and evenings spent with prostitutes in luxury hotels — much of which is detailed in Biden’s 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” excerpts of which the prosecution plans on reading during the trial.
“The evidence is ugly and personal, but we didn’t choose it,” Wise said. “He spent the money on what he spent it on. That will be factual testimony … He had tax obligations. He made a series of choices not to meet his obligations to the U.S. Treasury, and spent it on other things.”
The prosecution intends to call Biden’s ex-girlfriend and Beau Biden’s surviving wife, as well as women Hunter Biden hired to perform various tasks — for example, to clean up drug paraphernalia in hotel rooms. Wise said he claimed that payment as a business expense, which he said was proof that Biden’s tax evasion was personal and not just a mistake.
Scarsi declined to make a blanket order about not allowing testimony of Biden’s drug use, but did indicate that he would set certain limits.
“We need some guardrails on that,” Scarsi said. “The court has no interest in unnecessarily putting in evidence that would paint the defendant in a bad light. This is a trial about tax evasion.”
Geragos had also filed a motion to exclude from trial any reports that Biden had “acted on behalf of a foreign principal to influence U.S. policy and public opinion,” a reference to Biden’s work lobbying the U.S. State Department on behalf of Burisma. He also served on the board of a China-based private equity fund.
Geragos argued that mentioning those two controversies would be “using my client as collateral damage in political fight … This is nothing more than poisoning the jury pool.”
Wise insisted that this would be a small part of the case, although evidence of Biden working for such foreign entities “goes to his executive function,” he said.
Scarsi said he would defer the issue until the trial, though he said, again, “This is a tax trial … We’re not going to talk about any improper government conduct.”
Jury selection in the Biden trial is scheduled to start on Sept. 5, with opening statements expected on Sept. 9.