This morning, the second criminal trial for Hunter Biden begins.
The president's son.
Spending habits and drug addiction expected to be center stage
in the California courtroom.
Jury selection begins in just a matter of hours.
Hunter Biden is charged with tax evasion and filing a
false return after failing to pay more than $1,000,000 in
federal taxes on time.
Now, Hunter has pleaded not guilty.
And all of this comes just months after he was
found guilty on gun charges.
His lawyers say Hunter's drug addict addiction fueled out of
control spending habits.
Joining me now is trial attorney John Fishwick, former US
attorney for the Western District of Virginia.
John, thank you so much for your time this morning.
I appreciate it.
I'm curious, is this trial about to feel like Deja
vu, you know, from Hunter's first with the exact same
witnesses, same evidence playing out in this trial, Marky, it'll
be very similar.
I think, you know, it's going to be Hunter Biden
S defense.
It's going to be, look, I was using drugs and
alcohol at the time.
I didn't know what I was doing and I failed
to pay my taxes.
It was the same kind of defense that he had
in the gun charge.
I didn't know what I was doing when I filled
out that application, that I possessed a gun.
I was an addict at the time.
But the evidence in this case, Marquis, is going to
be more overwhelming.
The prosecution is going to really focus on his extravagant
lifestyle, staying at fancy hotels, driving fancy cars with escorts,
going to strip clubs and receiving millions of dollars in
income and not paying taxes.
And so most folks on a jury, their taxes are
taken out every two weeks when they get paid.
So it's going to be, I think, much more overwhelming
evidence.
And I want to bring that up because the prosecution
wants to highlight some of those habits include a they
include a $43,000 hotel bill, $11,000 for two nights with
an escort, another $4000 at a strip club.
Why is his personal spending so important in this case
and how damning will that be for Hunter?
I think it'll be very damning on what the prosecution
wants to show is that on some of those expenses
he actually deducted from his tax returns when he went
got around to making the tax returns and paying the
taxes in 2020.
So he deducted some of these hotel stays, payments to
strippers.
And so they're saying, well, you knew what you could
write these off, but yet you didn't pay the taxes.
So I don't know how much the judge is going
to let him get into these salacious details, but I
think a fair amount to show that he was had
lots of income, that he was living a high life
lifestyle and that in fact, he tried to deduct some
of these expenses for this high lifestyle and but he
didn't pay the government his taxes.
Yep, more than a million.
Biden's lawyer, Mark Geragos, we know he's expected to argue
that Hunter Biden did not willfully break the law, that
his addiction impacted his decision making and judgment to the
extent that he could not have intentionally committed these crimes
with which he's charged.
Is that a strong case?
It's not.
It's going to be a real uphill battle for the
Hunter Biden team.
And probably their best argument the judges said they can't
make.
And that is eventually, Hunter Biden did pay his taxes,
but $1.4 million in taxes after he had failed to
file the tax returns and after he had failed to
make the payments.
But in tax cases, that's not really admissible evidence.
What you look at is at the time you paid
the taxes or were supposed to pay the taxes and
at the time you were supposed to file your taxes,
what did you do?
So the defense is really going to be uphill, I
think, to say, look, I didn't know what I was
doing because I was addicted to drugs.
As I mentioned earlier, jury selection begins today.
You know, his dad, President Biden, has obviously dropped out
of the race.
But in such a divisive election year, is it a
fool's errand to think that you can find an impartial
jury?
Marky, I think you can.
You know, jurors are underoath.
My experiences is they're very conscientious.
They're going to listen to the judges instructions and follow
law.
The judges approved detailed questions for all the jurors that
will take place today and tomorrow.
As a judge that helps the lawyers pick a jury
of 12 folks and some alternates.
He's going to ask them about their politics, about have
they had addiction, touch their families, have they had interactions
with the IRSI think you can weed out the folks
who aren't going to be fair.
I expect you'll get a fair jury.
OK, well, we will wait and see.
And we'll be on top of every detail as it
happens in real time.
John Fishwick, thank you so much, Sir.