Hunter Biden lost his bid to halt his tax evasion district court proceedings in California on Wednesday after the Ninth Circuit declined to hear his appeal.
District Judge Mark Scarsi denied Mr. Biden’s motion for a stay of proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California pending the outcome of his appeal. The stay had been requested on May 10 after Mr. Biden filed his interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit panel ruled in favor of the special counsel and dismissed Mr. Biden’s appeal.
This rendered moot a motion filed by Mr. Biden’s lawyers on Tuesday asking the judge for an expedited hearing on his motion to halt proceedings or, alternatively, for the judge to consider his written motion without hearing oral arguments.
“Because the panel’s order moots Mr. Biden’s motion, the Court grants the application to rule on shortened time and denies the motion,” Judge Scarsi wrote in his order on Wednesday.
Judge Scarsi’s order stated that his prior orders and the trial schedule would remain in place, and that the court would hear any further requests to modify the pre-trial schedule at a conference on May 29.
Mr. Biden, who had argued that the district court’s jurisdiction had been divested once he filed his interlocutory appeal, filed his motion for a stay after the judge wrote in a May 9 order that failing to do so would be “at his own peril.”
Hunter Biden’s Problems ‘Are Entirely of His Own Making’
Special Counsel David Weiss, who is prosecuting the case on behalf of the government, opposed Mr. Biden’s bid to halt proceedings while waiting to hear the outcome from the Ninth Circuit. He argued that any “problems” with scheduling conflicts in both Mr. Biden’s California tax evasion case and his Delaware gun charges case “are entirely of his own making.”
In his brief asking for an expedited hearing filed on Tuesday, Mr. Biden’s lawyers told Judge Scarsi that he wasn’t aware that failing to file a motion to stay pending appeal would be “at his own peril,” and that he promptly filed his motion to stay the next day after the judge’s order came down.
In requesting an expedited hearing, Angela Machala and Abbe Lowell, the lawyers representing Mr. Biden, had sought to address scheduling conflicts in pretrial proceedings that threatened to emerge due to potential appeals court proceedings and an upcoming trial on June 3 in his Delaware case.
The lawyers argued that Mr. Biden was not to blame for the overlap in the separate court proceedings.
Specifically, Mr. Biden’s lawyers asked that a hearing on his motion to stay take place before a pretrial conference scheduled for May 29 to comply with court rules on when hearings can be set.
This potential conflict was rendered moot by the Ninth Circuit’s ruling on Wednesday. Similarly, the Third Circuit, where Mr. Biden had taken his Delaware appeal, also dismissed his motions.
Mr. Biden had previously argued that the district court had been divested of its jurisdiction when he filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit. This claim was disputed by the special counsel.
On May 9, Judge Mark Scarsi stated that the court “has not vacated the pretrial schedule, and absent a request for [a stay], Mr. Biden ignores the Court’s orders at his own peril.”
In response, Mr. Biden filed his motion for stay pending appeal the next day. In that filing, he maintained his position that the court had been divested of jurisdiction by the act of filing his interlocutory appeal.
Mr. Biden’s lawyers argued that he was not at fault for “creating the crisis” that led to their requesting the stay, nor did the scheduling conflict come about “as a result of excusable neglect.”
In contrast, the special counsel sought to counter these arguments on Tuesday, arguing that “the defendant’s ‘hardship’ is one he has created for himself.”
The Epoch Times contacted Mr. Biden’s attorneys for comment.
