Hunter Biden’s lawyers tell judge special counsel is trying to turn tax trial into ‘character assassination’

Los Angeles CNN —

Hunter Biden’s lawyers accused federal prosecutors Wednesday of trying to turn his upcoming tax evasion trial into a public “character assassination.”

At a hearing in Los Angeles, lawyers for President Joe Biden’s son blasted special counsel David Weiss and his team, who successfully prosecuted Hunter Biden on gun crimes earlier this summer and are angling for another win at his tax trial next month.

“They want to slime him,” Hunter Biden’s lawyer Mark Geragos said, arguing that Weiss was attempting to put on an “independent counsel-style salacious prosecution” and is “making him look bad” by cherry-picking the facts to push the jury toward a conviction.

“It’s actually a form of character assassination,” Geragos said.

The clash came as District Judge Mark Scarsi handed down rulings on key evidentiary questions, largely siding with prosecutors and making it tougher for Biden’s defense. He has pleaded not guilty to nine charges, which include three tax felonies.

From the bench, Scarsi ruled that Biden’s team can’t tell jurors that that the president’s son belatedly paid his entire $2 million tax bill. The judge also excluded an expert witness that the defense hoped would explain how addiction impaired Biden’s decision-making.

Geragos called the addiction angle “the centerpiece of the defense,” saying they hoped to explain how the childhood car accident that killed his mother and sister, and his brother’s subsequent death from brain cancer fueled his descent into alcoholism and drug abuse.

The defense is aiming to demonstrate to the jury that “there is a relationship between the throes of the addiction and the tax non-compliance as alleged,” Geragos said.

But prosecutors countered that the