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Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, with attorney Abbe Lowell, left, leaves after a closed-door deposition in the Republican-led investigation into the Biden family, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Hunter Biden’s lawyers are now hoping an appellate panel will find that his gun indictment should be dismissed based on “immunity” and the special counsel’s purportedly unlawful appointment.
The move from attorneys for President Joe Biden’s son towards an interlocutory appeal comes mere days after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Donald Trump appointee, rejected Hunter’s arguments that the crumpled up plea and diversion agreement “conferred” him with immunity; that Special Counsel David Weiss was unlawfully appointed and funded; and that his indictment violated the separation of powers (which the judge called “not credible“).
Biden’s notice of interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reveals that the defense aims to bring up each of these issues all over again:
Notice is hereby given that Robert Hunter Biden, Defendant in the above-named case, appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from this Court’s April 12, 2024 Orders denying Mr. Biden’s motion to dismiss the indictment for violating the immunity conferred by the Diversion Agreement (D.E. 98) and its related Memorandum Opinion (D.E. 97), his motion to dismiss the indictment for the improper appointment of the Special Counsel and violation of the Appropriations Clause (D.E. 101), and his motion to dismiss the indictment for violation of separation of powers (D.E. 99).
In a separately filed status report, the defense asked the judge to hold a status conference on scheduling given their appellate efforts, upcoming deadlines, and the special counsel’s proposed schedule — a subject of apparent disagreement.
“Today, we filed a Notice of Appeal of some of the Court’s rulings (those for which Third Circuit law provides such interlocutory review),” the filing said. “In addition, we have conferred with the Special Counsel’s Office to discuss the pretrial schedule in light of both the Notice—certain proposed dates for which there would have been inadequate time to meet, even without the Notice of Appeal being filed—and also that the government’s proposed pretrial schedule included more items than the Court’s template order provided for.”
Weiss bristled elsewhere over the defense’s last-minute status report and the possible jeopardizing of the June 3 trial date.
“The United States has not agreed to a status report because that does not comply with the Court’s order and instead could jeopardize the schedule and trial date in this matter,” the special counsel warned.
