Government prosecutors on Tuesday opposed a recent effort by Hunter Biden’s attorneys to dismiss the federal gun charges filed against him on the basis of selective and vindictive prosecution, arguments the special counsel’s office called “meritless.”
Prosecutors for special counsel David Weiss said in a court filing that Biden’s motion “produces no evidence to support his allegation that the Executive Branch, led by his father, President Biden, and its Justice Department, led by the Attorney General appointed by his father, authorized prosecution by the U.S. Attorney and Special Counsel of their choosing for an ‘improper political purpose.'”
Prosecutors went on to say that “the charges in this case are not trumped up or because of former President Trump—they are instead a result of the defendant’s own choices and were brought in spite of, not because of, any outside noise made by politicians.”
They said Biden’s 2021 memoir “made countless incriminating statements about his years-long drug usage, including during the time period he purchased and possessed the gun.”
Attorneys for Biden did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office said there will be “no additional comment/details beyond what has been publicly filed.”
Biden was hit in September with a three-count indictment tied to his alleged possession of a gun while he was using narcotics. He pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors also alleged Tuesday that it was not until last year — when FBI investigators pulled “sealed evidence” from a state police vault, believed to be in Delaware, to take photographs of Biden’s gun — that “investigators observed a white powdery substance on the defendant’s brown leather pouch that had held the defendant’s firearm in October 2018,” which was later analyzed and identified as cocaine.
Biden’s attorneys last month asked the federal judge overseeing the case in Delaware to dismiss the gun charges, claiming he is the victim of “selective and vindictive prosecution.”
Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Biden, claimed the probe has been “polluted with politics” since it began during the Trump administration.
Weiss is a Trump appointee who was kept on as the U.S. attorney for Delaware by Attorney General Merrick Garland because of the sensitive nature of an investigation into a member of the president’s family by the Justice Department.
The filing in December was one of several motions Biden’s attorneys have filed to toss out the felony gun charges Weiss brought in September.
In another motion, Biden’s attorneys had argued that an earlier agreement with prosecutors gives him immunity.
Federal prosecutors disputed the claim in a separate filing Tuesday, arguing that the agreement was not in effect because it was not signed by the U.S. Department of Probation.
In a third filing Tuesday, prosecutors said they have provided over 1.2 million pages of documents that they intend to use in the case, as well as “additional electronic evidence from the defendant’s Apple iCloud account and a copy of data from the defendant’s laptop.”
Biden was also indicted in California last month on nine tax-related charges, including three felony counts. He pleaded not guilty last week.
House Republicans have targeted Biden in their impeachment inquiry into his father. The president’s son recently defied a congressional subpoena that requested a closed-door deposition. His attorneys said last week that he would comply if House Republicans issued a new subpoena.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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