For years, there have been questions about whether, and if so how, Hunter Biden could ever be prosecuted using evidence from the laptop. As I noted here, David Weiss and Derek Hines revealed how they intend to do that yesterday. The answer is, by engaging in unbelievably dickish sandbagging of the President’s son.

The ploy involved two steps. First, prosecutors provided Hunter digital evidence in October, with warrants only for tax crimes. At that point, there was no reason to assess those warrants for suppression, because they did not permit searches for gun crimes.

Then, exactly seven days before the motions deadline in the case, they provided a new warrant, for the first time presenting a warrant covering gun crimes. They now claim that because Abbe Lowell did not move to suppress the laptop by that motions deadline seven days later, he has waived his opportunity.

I’m not saying that this kind of ethically problematic gimmick won’t work, nor am I saying it only happens to privileged white men like Hunter. But it is shocking that that is how they plan to bury legal and forensic problems with evidence from the laptop.

I think it likely Lowell may respond by saying there are a whole bunch of things — such as evidence the FBI conducted analysis long before they obtained the laptop and determined John Paul Mac Isaac had unlawfully accessed it and known forensic reports describing problems with the data — that he should have been provided. I expect Lowell will point to this gimmick and describe that it is proof these men are no longer entitled to the presumption of regularity, and therefore the gun charges should be reviewed for vindictive prosecution.

Lowell may also point out that evidence Joseph Ziegler made public shows that a key premise behind this gimmick is false.

Part of Hines’ gimmick is a claim that investigators could, and — the response suggests — did, find evidence pertaining to gun crimes while seeking evidence of Hunter’s state of mind pertaining to the tax crimes.

The warrant authorized investigators to search for the same violations referenced in the previous paragraph, that is, violations of 26 U.S.C. § 7201, Tax Evasion, 26 U.S.C. § 7203, Willful Failure to File Tax Returns or Pay Taxes, and 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1), False Tax Returns. Relevant to this case, this warrant also authorized investigators to seize “evidence indicating the state of mind of the owner and user of the TARGET MACBOOK PRO and TARGET EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE as it relates to the crimes under investigation.” Again, evidence that showed the defendant’s addiction to controlled substances indicates “the state of mind of the owner and user of the TARGET MACBOOK PRO and TARGET EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE as it relates” to the to the tax crimes enumerated in the warrant.

Except Joseph Ziegler helpfully told us what he looked for with that very same warrant when he provided the filter term document to Congress. While he included “halliebiden” (meaning a few of these texts might come in), porn, and girl, he did not include drugs, cocaine, crack, or any other drug-related term.

Cathay

Cathay Bank

CEFC

Cooper

debit

deduction

Dennis Louis

Devon

Dhabi

Dodge

draw

That is investigators wouldn’t find most of these communications as part of the tax investigation.

In fact, Garrett Ziegler has identified several that involve Hunter’s then still licensed psychiatrist, Keith Ablow, which would have been filtered, and aren’t drugs at all.

Again, to be clear, Hines intends to bypass all scrutiny of the laptop with his unethical sandbagging, and he might get away with it.

But in the process, he’s making claims refuted by public evidence.