Will Hunter Biden Walk?

[Res Ipsa]

There are kinds of interesting court motions pending in Hunter Biden land. Having once again ventured down the Hunter Biden rabbit hole, I can report that there are more Hunter Biden lawsuits than I imagined.

Keep in mind that most of the evidence we are aware of has been developed and controlled by Congressional Republicans. They select the witnesses to testify. They decide which witnesses testify publicly and which are only deposed being closed doors. They decide which documents to release and which to withhold from the public.

Hunter is doing the investigation the Rs will never do. Only he’s doing it with a lower profile than the Congressional grandstanders. He’s doing it through discovery and motions in several lawsuits. Besides the criminal case, he has suits against the laptop guy, Giuliani, the IRS and others. And it’s there where the investigation into how Hunter just happened to drop off a laptop that he forgot to pick up, how a legally blind store owner just happened to read the contents of the laptop (because that’s what you do with someone else’s computer, and why copies of data from the laptop just happened to be given to R operatives like Rudy and Steve Bannon, and how this all just happened to happen in the weeks leading up to the presidential election. And we’ll also learn about the very odd activity on the laptop while Hunter was at a rehab clinic. I’m pretty sure Comer and Jordan aren’t interested in digging into those issues.

But, it looks like the “whistleblowers,” House Rs, and Weiss (the prosecutor) may have completely screwed up the criminal case against Hunter. His lawyers have filed a set of motions to dismiss that show the type of political prosecution of an ordinary citizen that Ajax could only dream of. Congress absolutely inserted itself into the prosecution of the case, including subpoenaing the prosecutor to testify about a pending case. That’s direct political interference in the case prosecution. And as a direct result of that interference, the prosecution tried to renege on a plea deal, and replaced the two misdemeanor charges with eight felony charges.

Now, when a prosecutor ups the ante like that, it’s supposed to be based on new evidence. But what the “whistleblowers” had to say wasn’t new evidence — they just didn’t like the prosecutor’s charging and decision to plea bargain. So what could be the new evidence.

One interesting claim is that the new evidence came from the CI that’s been arrested and charged for giving the FBI false information fed to him by Russian intelligence. Based on the charging documents, he provided some information right around the time of the change of heart on Hunter’s plea bargain. And, although Weiss appears to have known for a few months about the CI’s lies, he filed charges against him only after Hunter sought discovery into the basis for reneging on the plea bargain and increasing the charges.

If information from the CI was the reason Weiss planned to offer as the reason for the change of heart, things just got kind of awkward for Weiss. Although he filled both cases, he may be a witness in one or both of the cases. What a mess.

The motions also raise some serious questions about the prosecution’s evidence. The FBI failed to take the forensic steps necessary to verify not only what was on the hard drive, but what changes had been made to the laptop over time. And the prosecution keeps changing the source of the evidence it intends to use. It’s the laptop, then it’s the iCloud backup of the laptop. Then it’s “independent sources.” But in its latest filing (the one with the sawdust described as cocaine), the source is identified as the laptop. When asked where on the laptop the various pictures and texts were located, the prosecution admitted that they’d never indexed the laptops contents. No Bates numbers — nothing. That’s just weird.

And there’s more. The prosecution identified pictures as coming from a folder labeled iPhone 11 backup. Just one problem — the iPhone 11 was announced after the laptop allegedly was dropped off at the repair shop.

Maybe it’s all the kind of stuff that looks odd at first glance, but there are perfectly good explanations. If so, I hope we learn what they are.

Meanwhile, another thing you won’t hear the Rs talking about: the “whistleblowers” violated federal law by revealing Hunter’s confidential tax information many times to the media. The guy who leaked Trump’s tax return recently got five years. The “whistleblowers” who leaked Hunter’s tax information were and still are government employees with no charges having been filed.

Weaponized DOJ indeed.

Links to all the pleadings and motions can be found on emptywheel.net.

[ajax18]

Of course Hunter will walk. If not he'll be pardoned. Even if Trump wins, the Deep State still controls the country as they did in 2017.

[Gadianton]

Of course Hunter will walk. If not he'll be pardoned. Even if Trump wins, the Deep State still controls the country as they did in 2017.

I think you want Hunter to be guilty more than you really believe he is guilty.

[High Spy]

Of course Hunter will walk. If not he'll be pardoned. Even if Trump wins, the Deep State still controls the country as they did in 2017.

I think you want Hunter to be guilty more than you really believe he is guilty.

The video evidence was pretty convincing.

Criminal convictions require proof beyond a shadow of a doubt.

At least that’s a cliché that’s often repeated, but then fables often are believed by many.

[Gunnar]

Of course Hunter will walk. If not he'll be pardoned. Even if Trump wins, the Deep State still controls the country as they did in 2017.

If Hunter is actually guilty of something serious, I hope he will get appropriately penalized, but no more than he deserves. I really doubt that Biden will pardon him, should that happen, but he is a loving father and will support him and do all he can to forgive and rehabilitate him. If Biden really were inclined to pardon Hunter, he could do that now, while he is still President. Should Biden lose the election, preventing Trump from maliciously exacting unjust, maximum possible retribution against Hunter would be the strongest reason Biden could possibly have for pardoning his son, and I wouldn't blame him for doing so in that situation.

In the horrible scenario that Trump does win, what you cynically think of as the "Deep State" might well be our last hope to save us all from his unabashedly expressed tyrannical ambition to end our democracy for good.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Of course Hunter will walk. If not he'll be pardoned. Even if Trump wins, the Deep State still controls the country as they did in 2017.

I think you want Hunter to be guilty more than you really believe he is guilty.

He’s definitely guilty of the federal tax thing, kinda of guilty-by-proxy of the gun thing, definitely guilty of the drug and escort thing, and is most assuredly guilty of being the President’s son.

in my opinion, he should serve a few years in a minimum security prison, next to Trump.

- Doc

[ajax18]

In the horrible scenario that Trump does win, what you cynically think of as the "Deep State" might well be our last hope to save us all from his unabashedly expressed tyrannical ambition to end our democracy for good.

Isn't Democracy about respecting the will of the voters? How is using the deep state to overturn the will of the voters saving Democracy? It seems to me like it's doing the exact opposite. It's liberal fascism.

[ajax18]

Of course Hunter will walk. If not he'll be pardoned. Even if Trump wins, the Deep State still controls the country as they did in 2017.

I think you want Hunter to be guilty more than you really believe he is guilty.

I want the deep state held accountable for their partisan political justice system. Hunter is just a case in point of the partisan political discrimination that we live under in this country. If Don Jr. or Eric Trump had done anything close to what Hunter had done, they'd be left penniless and in jail for life.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I think you want Hunter to be guilty more than you really believe he is guilty.

I want the deep state held accountable for their partisan political justice system. Hunter is just a case in point of the partisan political discrimination that we live under in this country. If Don Jr. or Eric Trump had done anything close to what Hunter had done, they'd be left penniless and in jail for life.

Have you bought your pair, yet?

[Res Ipsa]

Of course Hunter will walk. If not he'll be pardoned. Even if Trump wins, the Deep State still controls the country as they did in 2017.

If Hunter walks, it will be because Congressional Republicans interfered with the case, not because of any deep state.