Federal prosecutors said in a Tuesday court filing that the FBI last year found cocaine on the leather pouch Hunter Biden used to store his gun.
The filing was a response to a motion that Biden's attorneys filed last month to dismiss gun charges against him, arguing that authorities were selectively prosecuting him on exaggerated charges. Prosecutors listed pieces of evidence against Biden as a response, including that investigators found drug residue on the defendant's gun pouch.
"FBI investigators observed a white powdery substance on the defendant’s brown leather pouch that had held the defendant’s firearm in October 2018. ... An FBI chemist subsequently analyzed the residue and determined that it was cocaine. To be clear, investigators literally found drugs on the pouch where the defendant had kept his gun," prosecutors wrote.
Special Counsel David Weiss charged Biden in September with lying about his use of crack cocaine when he bought the gun, prompting Biden to plead not guilty in October. In addition to the story about agents finding the drugs on the gun pouch, prosecutors in their Tuesday filing brought up "incriminating statements" in Biden's 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, about using drugs in 2018, the year he purchased the gun.
Weiss also charged Biden in December with failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019 while he lived a lavish lifestyle. He pleaded not guilty to those charges last week.
Biden faces up to 10 years in prison for the gun charges and 17 years for the tax charges.
The tax charges stem from business dealings related to an impeachment inquiry from House Republicans against Hunter Biden's father, President Joe Biden. Reps. James Comer (Ky.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio) are looking for evidence that the elder Biden engaged in influence peddling with his son. The latest development in that saga is the younger Biden's decision last week to agree to comply with GOP lawmakers' demands that he testify.
Hunter Biden's lawyers had earlier argued that previous subpoenas for testimony were invalid because they came before the House formally voted to authorize the inquiry. The president's son spoke to the press on Capitol Hill in December but ditched a closed-door deposition in which he was supposed to participate later that day. Last week, he crashed, then fled, a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability while it considered holding him in contempt. The committee voted to go through with the contempt proceeding but paused those plans after Biden agreed to comply with a new subpoena.