In response to Hunter Biden’s notice of the schedule in California submitted in his Delaware case, Judge Maryellen Noreika asked what was up with Biden’s motion to compel submitted more recently.
ORAL ORDER re 84 Status Report – Having reviewed Defendant’s status report, which states that his motions to dismiss are fully briefed but is silent as to his most recently filed motion to compel discovery (D.I. 83), IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, on or before February 14, 2024, the parties shall notify the Court whether the parties have reached an agreed-upon briefing schedule for the recent motion to compel or whether briefing will proceed pursuant to the Court’s Standing Order Regarding Responses to Defense Motions in Criminal Cases. ORDERED by Judge Maryellen Noreika on 2/13/2024.
David Weiss responded by explaining his legal basis for accessing Hunter Biden’s dick pics and claiming that Abbe Lowell has forfeited any ability to challenge evidence thus seized. It reveals how Weiss plans to introduce evidence from stolen data that was originally accessed without a warrant in a case against the son of the President of the United States.
It is breathtaking in sheer ethical shoddiness.
And, it may work.
Derek Hines describes that he provided Abbe Lowell the tax warrants to access the iCloud, the laptop, and backups in October, and that because those warrants permitted the search for the what the warrant claims was the email account owner’s state of mind, then searching for evidence of addiction was fair game.
Relevant to this case, investigators were authorized by these warrants to seize “evidence indicating the email account owner’s state of mind as it relates to the crimes under investigation.” Evidence that showed the defendant’s addiction to and use of narcotics indicates “the email account owner’s state of mind as it relates” to the tax crimes enumerated in the warrant. In addition, investigators were also permitted to seize evidence relevant to this case under the plain view doctrine, which they did. This evidence, from the defendant’s backups of his devices to his iCloud account, was produced with the warrants in Production 1 in an easily searchable format. The primary source of electronic evidence in this case is from the defendant’s iCloud account, which investigators were authorized to seize because it showed “the email account owner’s state of mind as it relates to the crimes under investigation” as well as under the plain view doctrine.
Production 1 also included the contract the defendant signed when he dropped off his laptop and hard drive at the computer repair store in which he agreed that, “[e]quipment left with the Mac Shop after 90 days of notification of completed service will be treated as abandoned.” Investigators also obtained a search warrant authorizing them to search the laptop and hard drive that was obtained from the computer repair store. See District of Delaware Case No. 19-309M, issued on December 13, 2019. 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 MACBOOKPRO 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. In addition, investigators were also permitted to seize evidence relevant to this case under the plain view doctrine. Evidence seized pursuant to this warrant was produced to the defendant in the specific format that he requested. Many of the same messages, photographs, and information that were obtained from the iCloud warrants were also located on the defendant’s laptop. [my emphasis]
In other words, for months, they were claiming that they had found evidence of addiction in the name of searching for tax crimes and if not that, then plain view and that’s all they were relying on while searching Hunter Biden’s dick pics for five years.
Plain view is the concept that if you see evidence of a crime while looking for other crimes, you can use that evidence at trial (usually, after getting another warrant).
Derek Hines described (there are ways to prove this is false, if Lowell gets his shot to do that, but Hines claims he has forfeited that chance) sniffing Hunter Biden’d dick pics for years, all in the name of tax crimes.
Then, Hines described, he got the December 4 warrant for the very same information, and Abbe Lowell acknowledged seeing it on December 5, which gave them another legal authority to sniff Hunter Biden’s dick pics.
On December 4, 2023, investigators obtained an additional search warrant for the defendant’s iCloud account, the backup data associated with his iCloud account, his MacBook Pro laptop, and the hard drive. See District of Delaware Case No. 23-507M, issued on December 4, 2023. This warrant authorized investigators to search for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(6) and 924(a)(2) related to making a false statement during a background check to deceive a firearms dealer, violations of 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(1)(A) related to making a false statement during a background check on records that the firearms dealer was required to maintain, and violations of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3). Among other items, the warrant authorized investigators to seize “all evidence relating to addiction, substance use, and controlled substances, to include conversations, message communications, photographs, documents, and videos.” The December 4, 2023, warrant provided yet another legal basis for investigators to seize information relevant to this case from the defendant’s iCloud account, his iCloud backup files, his laptop, and his external hard drive. The warrant was produced to the defendant that same day, December 4, 2023. The following day, December 5, 2023, defense counsel sent the government a letter that acknowledged it had reviewed this search warrant. Because the actual evidence relevant to this case that was previously seized from the laptop, hard drive, and iCloud backup files had already been produced to the defendant on October 12, 2023, there was no additional evidence produced in response to this warrant.
Effectively, Weiss is saying that because Lowell did not immediately move to suppress the laptop and its progeny with just six day’s notice, that claim has been mooted.
The defendant’s pretrial motions were due on December 11, 2023. ECF 57. The defendant did not file any motions seeking to suppress evidence related to the search warrants and evidence produced to him on October 12, 2023, in Production 1. The December 4, 2023, warrant does not entitle him to file any now. In fact, the December 4, 2023 warrant moots any issues that could have been raised by the defendant had he filed a motion to suppress those warrants, and, in any event, he did not elect to file motions to suppress the evidence from the August 29, 2019, December 13, 2019, or July 10, 2020 warrants that were produced to him on October 12, 2023.
As I will show, the places where they obtained communications are themselves problematic, but if this claim that the December 4 warrant moots any suppression claim works, then Lowell will have no opportunity to challenge the fact that David Weiss wants to use stolen data to prosecute the son of the President except by challenging individual communications at trial.
I’ve literally never seen something this ethically brazen. Ever. (Though admittedly, I only cover federal trials; this kind of stuff goes on in state cases all the time.)
And they’re doing it to get away with investigating Joe Biden’s son for years using stolen data.