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While Hunter Biden vacationed with his family in Santa Ynez Valley in California on Wednesday, nearly 100 miles away in Los Angeles his lawyers empathetically defended him in his final pretrial conference before his federal tax case heads to trial.
Mark Geragos, an attorney who joined Biden’s legal team recently, was pushing back on the prosecution’s plan to bring up embarrassing details of Biden’s past, like spending money on drugs, girlfriends and lovers, expensive hotels and more rather than pay his taxes.
“They want the character assassination, they want to slime him, that is the whole purpose,” Geragos told District Court Judge Mark Scarsi.
It arrived after lead prosecutor Leo Wise said that the personal details of Biden’s life, specifically while he was battling addiction, were part of evidence closely related to the nine tax-related charges at the center of the case.
Biden is charged with three felony and six misdemeanor charges that accuse him of avoiding paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while maintaining an “extravagant lifestyle” between 2016 and 2019.
During that time, Biden had an addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol – something, he has previously said, emerged while he was grieving the death of his older brother, Beau Biden.
Geragos argued that the defense should be allowed to explain to the jury the context behind Biden’s addictions, like how the death of his mother and infant sister when he was a young boy and then the death of his brother as an adult triggered his addictions.
“[Prosecutors] are creating a portrait for the jury of someone who was plopped down in West Hollywood and decided to just party and do cocaine as if he didn’t have a care in the world,” Geragos said.
But Judge Scarsi was not convinced that evidence related to why addiction occurs was relevant.
By the end of the pretrial conference hearing, it became clear that the California tax case would echo much of what occurred during Biden’s federal gun charges trial in Wilmington, Delaware.
Salacious and embarrassing details of Biden’s life took center stage during that trial, like how he spent thousands of dollars on expensive hotel rooms to use crack cocaine, how his ex-wife needed to sweep their car for drugs before allowing their daughters to drive it, and more.
It culminated in emotional testimony from Biden’s eldest daughter, Naomi Biden, who tearfully recounted how her father’s addiction impacted her relationship with him. Biden was ultimately found guilty on all three federal gun charges.
Prosecutors will likely revisit some of those personal details in the California tax charges case. They have also signaled in court filings they plan to introduce evidence related to Biden’s foreign business dealings that cast a negative shadow on him.
