Hunter Biden pictured on Feb. 4, 2023 (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky); disputed lines of sawdust or cocaine (Biden discovery motion)
Criminal defense lawyers for President Joe Biden’s adult son Hunter Biden say federal prosecutors mistook sawdust for cocaine.
The allegation was made in a Tuesday discovery motion obtained by Law&Crime. The younger Biden is pushing for the court overseeing his federal firearms case to set discovery deadlines — and to force the government to fully comply with defense discovery requests.
When federal agents mistakenly confused sawdust for cocaine, they made a series of telling, demonstrative, and demonstrable errors that suggest the government cannot be trusted to fulfill discovery obligations without a court order, Biden’s motion argues.
“The prosecution’s latest filing amplifies why Mr. Biden and the Court cannot take the prosecution’s assertions concerning its discovery production or what that discovery reveals at face value,” the motion reads.
In a recent exhibit filed by the government, prosecutors supplied a photograph showing three lines of an unknown substance. The photograph was preceded by the line: “During November and December 2018, the defendant took multiple photographs of videos [sic] apparent cocaine, crack cocaine, and drug paraphernalia.”
Biden’s attorneys say the photograph actually depicts sawdust — and that their client clearly was not the source of the image.
“The prosecution is flat out wrong — both that Mr. Biden ‘took’ this photograph and in claiming that it depicts ‘cocaine,”” the motion reads. “Multiple sources have pointed out, and a review of discovery confirms, this is actually a photo of sawdust from an expert carpenter and it was sent to Mr. Biden, not vice versa.”
Instead, the motion claims, the image is “a photo of a photo taken in the office of Mr. Biden’s then-psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow.”
In the discovery motion, the image in question is accompanied by two text messages from a person identified as Ablow. One of those messages reads: “This one in my office is of lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was a coke addict.”
The Ablow messages and image. (Biden discovery motion)
“The message accompanying that photo was meant to convey that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction,” the motion argues.
Biden’s attorneys criticize the prosecution by saying the alleged mistake is redolent of Steven Guttenberg’s “Police Academy” films.
“The prosecution was reckless in making such a hyperbolic and sensational claim in a public filing, which it surely realized would prejudice Mr. Biden in the public eye,” the filing goes on. “Mistaking sawdust for cocaine sounds more like a storyline from one of the 1980s Police Academy comedies than what should be expected in a high-profile prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
The 46th president’s son has waged an aggressive criminal defense strategy as he fights special counsel David Weiss’ gun prosecution in Delaware, where Biden was indicted in September 2023 after an agreement to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes fell apart.
In the three-count indictment, prosecutors allege the defendant failed to disclose on paperwork filed with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he was using drugs when he purchased a gun in 2018 in Wilmington. Biden is also charged with lying to a licensed gun dealer and for possessing a firearm while using narcotics.
Tuesday’s motion is the latest salvo in what looks likely to be a knock-down-drag-out fight to the end between both sides in the case — which the defense has blasted as part of a partisan feud.
“The law does not give the prosecution a participation trophy for playing in the event; they should finish the process without a defendant cheering for the partial effort,” the defense motion reads. “For all its bluster, there is nothing improper nor out of the ordinary for Mr. Biden to make the same request that virtually every defendant makes, asking that the prosecution give him all the information that he is due so that he can prepare for and receive a fair trial.”
Also on Tuesday, Alexander Smirnov, 43, a U.S. citizen who has an Israeli passport, appeared in federal court in Las Vegas, Nevada. The court appearance is related to allegations that Smirnov, while an informant for the FBI, fabricated claims that Hunter and Joe Biden were bribed by a Ukrainian energy company.
Matt Naham and Brandi Buchman contributed to this report.
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