Report: Judge not well disposed towards Hunter Biden ahead of tax trial

Hunter Biden's lawyers had a difficult day in California federal court on Wednesday as their motions related to the upcoming tax trial against the First Son were denied numerous times.

Biden's lead defense attorney in the case, Mark Geragos, argued to Judge Mark Scarsi that special counsel David Weiss's prosecutors wanted to “smear” Biden, according to a court report obtained by CNN.

“It’s actually a form of smear campaign,” Geragos said.

The parties in the case had filed a list of motions in preparation for the trial, which is scheduled for September 9. Biden faces nine tax offenses, including tax evasion and filing false tax returns. The purpose of the hearing was to review the motions before the trial, focusing on what could and could not be presented as evidence at trial.

Throughout the hearing, Scarsi “largely sided with prosecutors,” CNN reported.

Scarsi ruled during the hearing that the eldest son could not refer to how he later paid his back taxes at trial. He also reportedly barred Biden from using an expert witness to testify about his past addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol. Biden's lawyers wanted to use the witness to highlight that Biden was not of sound mind during the 2015 to 2019 tax years mentioned in his indictment, even though the eldest son conducted multimillion-dollar foreign business transactions during those years.

“No matter how many drugs you take, you don't suddenly forget that when you make $11 million you have to pay taxes,” prosecutor Leo Wise said during the hearing.

The status of other pre-trial motions is unclear.

According to court documents, Biden's defense also asked Scarsi to exclude from the case any evidence or mention of Biden's “extravagant lifestyle,” including references to strip clubs and pornography, on which prosecutors say the First Son spent thousands of dollars during the tax years in question. Prosecutors said Biden failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes during those years, and evidence of the First Son's frivolous spending was relevant to the case.

Biden's defense attorneys also asked to exclude the charge of “improper political influence,” referring to prosecutors' disclosure in a recent court document that Biden's lucrative foreign business dealings included a Romania deal that was structured to evade compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

FARA provides a public registry of people in the United States who do business on behalf of foreign companies, designed to help prevent covert foreign influence in the U.S. Weiss said he would not accuse Biden of violating FARA at trial, but said the First Son's foreign activities, which included avoiding FARA registration while communicating with the State Department during his father's term as vice president, helped reveal Biden's “state of mind” during the tax years mentioned in his indictment.

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Legal experts have said it would be in Biden's best interest to plead guilty before trial, where he will face a mountain of evidence against him. A deal would allow Biden to avoid a multi-week event focusing on one of the darkest periods of his life, after his brother died of cancer and he himself was in the grips of addiction.

However, a settlement would likely require Biden to plead guilty and possibly even serve a prison sentence after the First Son rejected a settlement offer with far more lenient terms last summer.