Hunter Biden’s lawyers resisted a federal judge’s threat to sanction them for making “false statements” while also granting their motion to dismiss Biden’s criminal charges in California.
On a archiving sunday with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Biden’s legal team said it “never attempted to mislead” the court after U.S. District Judge Mark Scarcsi wrote to Biden’s lawyers falsely claiming that U.S. Attorney David Weiss did not bring charges against the president’s son until after he was named special counsel.
“Defense counsel, perhaps somewhat ingeniously, intended this use of the word ‘charges’ to refer to the current charges brought by the prosecution against Mr. Biden, and not to the lack of any charges,” Biden’s lawyers wrote. “Context matters here.”
The portion of the motion in question stated: “As U.S. Attorney, he had years to bring whatever charges he felt were warranted, but he did not file any charges until he received the Special Counsel title he sought.”
Scarsi, in his order last week, wrote that Weiss brought the initial charges against Biden as U.S. attorney and before he was named special counsel and accused the lawyers of presenting distortions.
Lawyers for the younger Biden said they will amend the motion to replace the word “accusations” with “accusations” in the disputed statements, but emphasized that the wording is not misleading when put into context.
“However, there is no basis to sanction Mr. Biden’s lawyer
for the use of that word, which was not misleading in the context in which the previous two pieces of information were repeatedly addressed with the Court,” the lawyers wrote.
This comes days after Scarsi issued an order to the legal team asking them to “show cause why sanctions should not be imposed for false statements in the motion.”
Biden’s lawyers filed a motion earlier this month asking the judge to dismisshis criminal chargesin California, where the president’s son will be tried this fall.
He is accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 to 2019.
The nine tax felonies and tax misdemeanors further allege that he attempted to evade the 2018 tax assessment by filing false returns and instead used the money to finance an indulgent lifestyle that included drugs and alcohol.
His lawyers also filed a motion asking a Delaware judge to dismiss his criminal charges in his federal gun case, which led to a conviction last month.
Both motions cited U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed former President Trump’s Florida confidential documents allegations, ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was not lawfully appointed.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
