In a filing submitted last week opposing Hunter Biden’s [surely doomed] bid for a continuance of his California trial until September, Leo Wise argued that this is just a garden variety tax case that doesn’t merit any more time to prepare than the week between the Delaware case and the California case.
The defendant claims that he requires only “a small amount of additional time to adequately prepare” ECF 97, p. 5 (emphasis added). However, he asks for this “limited reprieve,” ECF 97, p. 4, of 77 days without providing any details about how those two and half months would be utilized. His filing is simply unclear about what the defendant would actually do with any additional time. His perception of this case as “uniquely challenging and high-profile,” ECF 97, p. 5, is unlikely to change if a continuance is granted. The fact that there may be more press coverage of this trial than others does not affect the preparation required by counsel in any way. This is a straightforward tax case, and the defendant has not alleged otherwise. He is not above the rule of law and should be treated like any other defendant. Every case has pretrial deadlines; the fact that they exist here cannot support a continuance request. Given the complete lack of specificity as to what needs to happen between now and trial (other than compliance with the usual pretrial deadlines which the defendant has known about since January), the factor of usefulness does not support a continuance. [my emphasis]
But a motion in limine filed by Hunter Biden reveals that claim is false.
Wise has no intention of treating this as a straightforward tax case.
After Hunter Biden agreed, in response to Weiss’ own motion in limine, not to mention how Leo Wise had been badly duped by Alexander Smirnov and instead of dropping the case, continued to give Russia what it intended all along, a political hit job on Joe Biden during the 2024 election, Hunter asked David Weiss’ team if they would likewise agree not to make this a trial about influence-peddling.
Weiss refused.
Defendant Robert Hunter Biden, by and through his counsel of record, hereby files this Motion in Limine to exclude from trial reference to any allegation that Mr. Biden (1) acted on behalf of a foreign principal to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, (2) violated FARA, (3) improperly coordinated with the Obama Administration, (4) received direct compensation from any foreign state, (5) received compensation for actions taken by his father that impacted national or international politics, or (6) funneled money to his father or any related alleged corruption (together, allegations of “improper political influence and/or corruption”). This evidence should clearly be excluded under the Federal Rules of Evidence 403 balancing test, as the risk of unfair prejudice is significantly outweighed by any marginal probative value. On May 17, 2024, Mr. Biden’s counsel asked for the Special Counsel’s position on this proposed motion in limine. On May 20, 2024, the Special Counsel indicated that he opposes this motion.
[snip]
Although the Special Counsel’s filed exhibit list (DE 88) contains upwards of forty descriptions that are totally insufficient to identify what document is being referred to (see, e.g., “Text Messages” (#073), “Notes” (#318)), it is clear that many exhibits the Special Counsel intends to introduce relate to allegations of improper political influence and/or corruption that are wholly outside of the scope of the Indictment. See, e.g., “Email from Eric Schwerin to Antony Blinken re: My Remarks In Latvia” (GX-267), “Email from Eric Schwerin to Sally Painter re: Amos Hochstein” (GX-262). Allowing in evidence or testimony related to the unsubstantiated claims of improper political influence and/or corruption run a real risk of the jury convicting Mr. Biden based on facts and allegations outside of the Indictment.
Defense counsel notes that it is ironic that the Special Counsel has filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence “alleging the prosecution of the defendant is somehow due to or part of a Russian malign election influence campaign,” which Mr. Biden did not object to. (DE 92 at 4.) Yet, the Special Counsel opposes the instant motion, which would preclude him from putting forward similar politically charged information to the jury. To prevent this trial from becoming a trial on politics rather than a trial on the charges in the Indictment, this Court should grant both the Special Counsel’s motion as it relates to a “Russian malign election influence campaign” and this Motion.
Having investigated for six years, David Weiss never substantiated a FARA case. But (as the exhibit list makes clear) he wants to drag that into what he claims is a straightforward tax case anyway.
The scope of Leo Wise’s aspirations to use the tax case as a vehicle to air James Comer’s fevered fantasies is made clear by something else Wise revealed in that same filing: The reason giving Hunter Biden more than a week between trials would harm the government is because they plan to make more than thirty people from around the country fly to California to testify against Joe Biden’s kid.
The defendant is not seeking a modest delay of a few days to obtain a piece of evidence or to procure a witness. He seeks a 77-day delay in a case the government has extensively prepared for following a detailed and lengthy investigation. This will inconvenience the United States. For instance, the government anticipates calling more than thirty witnesses, most of them out-of-state. See Declaration of Leo J. Wise, at ¶4 . Trial subpoenas began being sent to these witnesses over a month ago. Id. Many of these individuals are represented; the witnesses and their counsel have planned their summer schedules to account for this trial commencing in June and concluding in July.
You don’t need to call 30 witnesses to present your tax case against Hunter Biden!!
The key witnesses will be Hunter’s ex-wife, Katie Dodge, no more than eight people Hunter paid out of Owasco funds and then wrote off (including, it seems, Hallie Biden, whose testimony Weiss is compelling), maybe a sex worker or two to titillate Matt Gaetz (Weiss has similarly refused to exclude the sex workers), the accountant who filed Hunter Biden’s taxes in 2020, former Hunter business partners Rob Walker and Eric Schwerin, and some law enforcement witnesses to present all the paperwork. That’s around 16 witnesses.
If Weiss really does call over 30 witnesses, it will make this “straightforward tax case” into the largest Special Counsel trial in recent years (as laid out by the list below).
The sheer overkill of Leo Wise’s aspirations is clear when you compare Hunter’s case — for a failure to pay taxes from income that all came through the US — to Paul Manafort’s EDVA trial. Like the Hunter Biden case, that was a tax case, one for which tax evasion was charged for five years, not one, and one for which the scope of income was at least an order of magnitude larger. Because Manafort’s tax evasion involved keeping his Ukraine income offshore in Cyprus, that case also included charges of FBAR violations. It also included nine counts of bank fraud. So tax evasion, plus hiding his funds overseas, plus trying to cheat some banks in the US. Prosecutors called a bunch of local Alexandria vendors, because one way Manafort shielded his income was by wiring money directly to US vendors to pay for things like Ostrich-skin vests.
And for all that, at this stage of the proceedings, prosecutors estimated they would call 20 to 25 witnesses; they ultimately called 27.
Leo Wise wants to do something more spectacular than the Paul Manafort case — and given his close ties to Rod Rosenstein, I wouldn’t rule out the grandiosity of his aspirations as some kind of payback. Of course, there’s a straight through-line between the Manafort case and the Russian-backed effort to fuck over Joe Biden, so Leo Wise is giving Russia precisely what they wanted.
Leo Wise was sure he was smarter than Lesley Wolf and so chased the Alexander Smirnov allegation only to discover he was participating in an attempt to frame Joe Biden. Having been duped there, Leo Wise now refuses to back down. He will stage the most spectacular Special Counsel trial yet!
Update: My apologies to Judge Scarsi. He has apparently granted the continuance to September 5.
Other Special Counsel prosecutions
Scooter Libby: 10 Government Witnesses (plus three CIA briefers not called)
Roger Stone: 5 Government Witnesses (plus Andrew Miller, Michael Caputo, and Jerome Corsi, not called)
Michael Sussmann: 25 Government Witnesses (about 5 not called)