Federal Judge Dismisses Hunter Biden Tax Charges
Tax charges against Hunter Biden were dismissed on Thursday afternoon by a federal judge in Delaware.
According to The Hill, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika dismissed the charges, which were part of a previous ill-fated plea bargain, after federal prosecutor David Weiss filed a motion to dismiss last week and requested a change of venue.
Noreika ultimately granted the motion.
NBC News reported the same or similar charges are likely to be refiled in either California or Washington, D.C.
Hunter Biden did not pay any taxes in 2017 or in 2018 in spite of earning large sums of cash in both years, according to NBC News.
He also purchased a gun while addicted to drugs in 2018 and falsified a government document in order to do so, which is a felony.
Biden was going to plead guilty to the charges until Noreika, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Donald Trump in 2017, picked the deal apart.
Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, was behind the agreement that would have seen President Joe Biden’s son plead guilty in exchange for no jail time.
The deal was criticized for its leniency.
In addition, the prosecutor has been accused of slow-walking investigations into the first family.
Meanwhile, two IRS whistleblowers who worked on the agency’s Hunter Biden investigation have said the government meddled in the probe.
Last week, Weiss was named special counsel in a larger probe into Hunter Biden after he asked for the role and his request was granted by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“As special counsel he will continue to have the authority and responsibility that he has previously exercised to oversee the investigation and decide where, when and whether to file charges,” Garland said last week.
He added, “Today’s announcement affords the prosecutors, agents and analysts working on this matter the ability to proceed with their work expeditiously and to make decisions indisputably guided by the facts and the law.”
Weiss’ appointment as special counsel was quickly criticized by Republicans in Congress.
“Let’s be clear what today’s move is really about,” Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who is investigating the Biden family, said in a statement.
“The Biden Justice Department is trying to stonewall congressional oversight as we have presented evidence to the American people about the Biden family’s corruption,” the chairman of the House Oversight Committee said.
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