Hunter Biden Asks Judge for Trump, Barr Subpoenas Amid Claim FBI Probe Was ‘Vindictive’

Lawyers for Hunter Biden asked a federal judge on Wednesday to issue subpoenas for several federal law enforcement officials, including former Attorney General Bill Barr and former US President Donald Trump, in the case against the first son.

According to the recent filing, Biden is seeking the testimony of Trump, Barr, and two other Justice Department officials in an effort to prove that the federal investigation of him was politically motivated.

"Mr. Biden seeks specific information from three former DOJ officials and the former President that goes to the heart of his defense that this is, possibly, a vindictive or selective prosecution arising from an unrelenting pressure campaign beginning in the last administration, in violation of Mr. Biden’s Fifth Amendment rights under the Constitution," Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote in the request to US District Judge Maryellen Noreika.

Hunter, who is the son of US President Joe Biden, is facing a trio of federal gun charges after a plea deal collapsed over the summer that also included misdemeanor tax fraud charges. While it was Hunter's lawyer who scuttled the deal, he has since tried to argue that the filing of new gun charges since then is part of a political campaign against him and his father, who is standing for reelection next November.

"In the lead up to the 2020 election, IRS case files show certain investigative decisions were made 'as a result of guidance provided' by, among others, 'the Deputy Attorney General’s office,'” Lowell’s filing said.

Lowell also specifically pointed to a comment by Barr published in his 2022 memoir “One Damn Thing After Another,” in which he said he told Trump in October 2020: “Dammit, Mr. President, I am not going to talk to you about Hunter Biden. Period!”

"These confirmations of communications give more than a mere appearance that President Trump improperly and unrelentingly pressured DOJ to pursue an investigation and prosecution of Mr. Biden to advance President Trump’s partisan ambitions," Lowell’s note to the judge said.

Lowell also claimed that Republican pressure on special counsel David Weiss compelled the attorney into “changing course” to file the indictment against Hunter Biden in September, “charging three felony counts for the same gun and same facts that just a few months prior Mr. Weiss had agreed to divert under a pre-trial diversion agreement.”

Ironically, Republicans have criticized Weiss for allegedly “slow-walking” the probe against Hunter, using a term introduced by an IRS whistleblower earlier this year. Last week, Weiss told a closed-door hearing by the House Judiciary Committee that “I am, and have been, the decision-maker on this case,” denying that he was ever pressured against charging Hunter by figures in the Biden administration.

Hunter has been accused in the press of a wide array of misdeeds, including related to activities described in the laptop he abandoned at a Delaware repair shop in 2019, as well as related to his business ventures in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere, which he has been accused of pushing ahead by using his connection to his father. Prior to becoming US president in 2021, Joe Biden also served as US vice president from 2009 to 2017, and before that spent decades in the US Senate.

A separate impeachment probe was opened by the US House of Representatives in September aimed at President Biden, but also concerning his relations with Hunter.