Hunter Biden is desperately trying to dismiss his criminal conviction for gun possession and a separate tax evasion case by claiming the person prosecuting him was illegally appointed.
Lawyers for the younger Biden referred to a federal judge’s decision on Monday that dismissed charges against Donald Trump for illegally withholding classified documents after taking office.
In that decision, Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon found that the appointment of Jack Smith, the special prosecutor in the classified documents case, violated the Constitution because he was not authorized by Congress to bring the charges.
The legal maneuver follows the Supreme Court’s decision weeks ago to grant Trump presidential immunity in the case of documents in which Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that Smith was improperly appointed.
Smith’s office is appealing the ruling.
Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden arrive to hear the verdict in his federal gun trial at U.S. District Court in Wilmington
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Jack Smith as special counsel, in a move aimed at insulating his own office from prosecuting President Biden’s rival.
“The Attorney General relied on exactly the same authority to appoint the Special Counsel in both the Trump and Biden cases, and both appointments are invalid for the same reason,” Biden’s team wrote in a court filing.
In June, another special prosecutor, David Weiss, secured the conviction of Hunter Biden on charges that he lied about his drug use when purchasing a gun years ago, during the height of his crack addiction.
That same special prosecutor is overseeing a tax case against Hunter that is scheduled to begin in September.
The president’s son has pleaded not guilty in that case.
The action by Biden and his legal team highlights the potential impact Cannon’s decision could have by limiting the attorney general’s ability to appoint special prosecutors in sensitive political investigations.
It also shows an alarming situation in which the president’s son is using a ruling that benefits Trump for his own gain.
FBI agents seized boxes of classified materials from Trump’s Florida club
Judge Cannon issued her ruling two days after Trump was shot and as the Republican convention prepares, weeks after Trump’s lawyers challenged the constitutionality of Jack Smith’s appointment.
U.S. President Donald Trump applauds alongside Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was just sworn in as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on October 26, 2020, in Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017.
However, Hunter Biden and his team will likely have a difficult time protesting the ruling because Smith was not a U.S. government employee when he was appointed to the post and has not gone through Senate confirmation.
Weiss, on the other hand, was confirmed by the upper chamber to serve as chief U.S. attorney in Delaware, meaning he at least obtained congressional approval to be a federal judge before being appointed special prosecutor.
The president’s son had previously challenged Weiss’s appointment on different grounds, but that effort was rejected by federal judges in both his gun and tax cases.