Hunter Biden Challenge to Special Prosecutor Tossed in Tax Case

Hunter Biden’s argument that his tax prosecution should be dismissed because the special prosecutor’s appointment violated the appropriations clause was rejected by a federal court.

Biden’s argument was based on rulings in cases against former-president Donald Trump. In United States v. Trump, Judge Aileen Cannon of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled that special prosecutor appointments violate the appropriations clause, and in a concurrence in Trump v. United States, Justice Clarence Thomas echoed that sentiment.

Here, Judge Mark C. Scarsi of the US District Court for the Central District of California said that he previously rejected Biden’s appropriation clause challenges to the special prosecutor as untimely. “Notwithstanding the emergence of new nonbinding authorities, the legal bases for the instant motion are the same as those that grounded the prior motion,” Scarsi said Monday. “Accordingly, the instant motion is untimely,” he said.

Biden said that his argument was jurisdictional and therefore not subject to a timeliness review. But Biden didn’t provide any law that “even remotely suggests an Appropriations Clause violation raises jurisdictional concerns,” Scarsi said.

Biden’s new motion was actually a motion to reconsider based on the new precedent, Scarsi said. But because Thomas’ and Cannon’s opinions weren’t binding on him, the judge said that they couldn’t be considered changes in the law that warranted reconsideration.

Winston & Strawn LLP and Geragos & Geragos APC represented Biden. The Office of the Special Counsel represented the US.

The case is United States v. Biden, C.D. Cal., No. 2:23-cr-00599, order striking motion to dismiss filed 8/19/24.