Hunter Biden Moves To Subpoena Trump, Barr In Gun Case

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Hunter Biden (Photo by Moses Robinson/Getty Images for Usher’s New Look Foundation)

Hunter Biden spent four years with his head down waiting for Republicans to get tired of using him as a punching bag. But now, in the wake of the implosion of his plea deal in July, he has a new mantra.

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Taking a page from his alleged Ukrainian allies, the president’s son has decided to make himself undigestible. He sued the IRS claiming that self-described whistleblowers illegally disclosed his personal information. He sued Rudy Giuliani for hacking his iCloud account. He sued the malicious MAGA dork who has made a living off of flogging Biden’s stolen data for years. He sent Trump a cease and desist letter claiming that the former president’s deranged lies on social media were endangering his family. He sent House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith a letter accusing him of peddling lies and misinformation.

And today, he asked Judge Maryellen Noreika to authorize subpoenas for documents Donald Trump, former attorneys general Bill Barr and Jeffrey Rosen, and former deputy AG Richard Donoghue.

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Biden cites public reporting, congressional Republicans’ own claims, and Trump’s constant social media howling as evidence of “incessant, improper, and partisan pressure applied by then President Trump to Messrs. Rosen, Donoghue, and Barr in relation to an investigation of Mr. Biden.”

Trump Truth Social post July 11, 2023

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Biden points to Barr’s appointment of Scott Brady, then the US Attorney in Pittsburgh, as a dedicated channel for Rudy Giuliani to peddle his nonsensical claims about Hunter and Joe Biden directly to the FBI, as well as Donoghue’s contemporaneous notes and Bill Barr’s book, both of which document pressure by the then-president to investigate his rival’s son.

He blames Republican political pressure for the withdrawal of his plea deal and the decision of Special Counsel David Weiss to charge him in the instant case for denying that he was a habitual drug user on a gun application in 2018.

“That outside pressure culminated in Special Counsel Weiss’s then changing course and bringing this Indictment on September 14 against Mr. Biden, charging three felony counts for the same gun and same facts that just a few months prior Mr. Weiss had agreed to divert under a pre-trial diversion agreement,” his lawyer Abbe Lowell wrote.

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Biden claims that the witnesses will have exculpatory information, potentially relevant to a malicious prosecution claim and for impeachment purposes. And he notes that Trump himself is hardly in a position to object, having himself filed both a motion to dismiss his election interference case for selective and vindictive prosecution and a demand to subpoena various executive branch and congressional officials.

But while sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander is an effective rhetorical argument, it may not be an effective legal one.

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The Justice Department has shown it will fight tooth and nail to shield high-ranking current and former officials from process, as it did recently in former FBI agent Peter Strzok’s wrongful termination suit, in which he alleges he was illegally fired at Trump’s behest. After more than a year of wrangling, Judge Amy Berman Jackson let Strzok depose Trump and FBI Director Chris Wray. But Biden is arguing before Judge Norieka, the Trump appointee who asked a bunch of inconvenient questions and ultimately rejected his plea back in July. And if the document subpoenas are a prelude to depositions, he’ll face even more pushback.

On the other hand, if the strategy here is for Biden to make himself as loud and obstreperous as possible in hopes of countering Republican pressure on the DOJ to throw him in jail, it just might work.

US v. Biden [Docket via Court Listener]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

Topics

Bill Barr, Donald Trump, Government, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden