The mix-up "sounds more like a storyline from one of the 1980’s Police Academy comedies than what should be expected in a high-profile prosecution,” Biden’s attorney wrote.

Federal prosecutors mistakenly claimed in a court filing that a photo of sawdust they found while searching Hunter Biden’s electronics was cocaine, attorneys for the president’s son said Tuesday.

The sawdust picture was used in a court filing detailing incriminating information that prosecutors said they turned up while executing a search warrant of Biden’s laptop and electronics, but his legal team said in court papers that the picture was sent to their client by his then-psychiatrist as inspiration.

The picture shows three lines of yellow dust on a piece of wood near some other dust. The psychiatrist sent the picture to Biden in 2018, saying it was "lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was a coke addict.”

Biden’s attorneys said the message and picture were “meant to convey that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction” and used the apparent mix-up to mock prosecutors.

  • takeda@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago
    1. The picture clearly is a sawdust though on a carpentry machine with plenty of it on the floor as well
    2. I don’t think autobiography can be used as evidence as generally everyone bends truth a little to make the book more interesting. It is not a sworn statement
      • takeda@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Wasn’t that because it showed the rapper knew things that weren’t public about the murder so likely was the killer?

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, obviously that one was.

      But more importantly it was a picture sent to him, he didn’t take it. And the context is the person who sent it was a medical professional helping him with addiction.

      That’s what I mean.

      There is a shit ton of other evidence, hell, there’s pictures of him literally smoking crack.

      And he has been incredibly public about his crack addiction.

      https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/02/politics/hunter-biden-book-memoir-addiction/index.html

      During which he bought at least one gun.

      Why the fuck is everyone acting like there’s a single chance he won’t be found guilty except his access to some of the best lawyers and media connections in America?

      He broke federal gun laws. It’s pretty clear cut that he deserves the same punishment as anyone else.

      • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        No one is disputing the crime. Providing fake evidence and telling everyone to accept it is nonsense.

      • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        Because Government officials are expected to operate at a higher standard. Submitting very clearly erroneous evidence is indicating that they are not operating at that higher standard.

        Now does that mean the case altogether is bunk? No, of course not. But it allows defenders to sow mistrust in the presentation by the prosecutor. That’s the entire point. And that’s why it’s important for officials to do things “by the book”. When they start going off rails that technically allows defense to ask “what else did you mess up?”

        Good lawyers go after every advantage they can offer their client. When prosecutors mess up, defense lawyers are allowed to file with the judge the question of “Hey they made a mistake, may I be allowed to inform the jury of this mistake?”

        It’s up to the judge to allow that or not. But good lawyers file these kinds of motions. Now will it have major ramifications on the case as whole? Who knows? But the entire point is this, bringing a case to court needs to be airtight and things like this are reasons why. Same reason why folks like Matt Gaetz seems to continually avoid prosecution. If it’s not airtight small mistakes can completely derail getting a guilty verdict. You just need one juror out of twelve to be sympathetic on some sticking point, and mistrust of the government is a good sticking point for some people.

        I get where you’re coming from, but shit, I’ve seen people walk free on more damming evidence simply because defense was able to sway on some particular mistrust.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          And that’s why it’s important for officials to do things “by the book”. When they start going off rails that technically allows defense to ask “what else did you mess up?”

          Which is also why the prosecution in Trump’s various trials are taking their time to get things right, and giving him as much latitude as possible.

          They know he is going to appeal, no matter what they do, so they’re making sure that appeal won’t be sucessful.

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        He broke federal gun laws. It’s pretty clear cut that he deserves the same punishment as anyone else.

        You should tell republicans that because they’re absolutely not interested in Hunter getting “the same punishment as anyone else”.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          When I tell Republicans that they call me a stupid liberal.

          When I tell Dems Hunter should be, I get called a stupid conservative.

          When I say everyone that smokes weed and owns a gun is breaking this same law and we need to fix our legal system. It’s just crickets

          No one in power wants to fix it, they just want to use the laws only against people they disagree with. Maybe if Hunter just smoked weed Biden would finally legalize it.

          It just sucks when both political parties want shitty laws that only their enemies are held to

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            When I tell Dems Hunter should be, I get called a stupid conservative.

            Weird, because I know a lot of people on the left, including myself, who say that if Hunter committed a crime, he should be prosecuted for it.

            When I say everyone that smokes weed and owns a gun is breaking this same law

            Are you sure about that? From August of last year-

            Aug 9 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that a decades-old law prohibiting users of illegal drugs from owning firearms was unconstitutional as applied to the case of a marijuana user, the latest fallout from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that expanded gun rights.

            https://www.reuters.com/legal/drug-user-cannot-be-barred-owning-guns-us-court-rules-2023-08-10/

            So if that is your issue here, then Hunter Biden should not be prosecuted.

            Meanwhile, he’s being treated far worse than anyone else who committed the tax crime he did. And to clarify, he did not pay his taxes and that is a crime… for which he was doing what he should have been doing and paying the taxes he owed.

            Hunter Biden is a piece of shit nepo baby and if there’s evidence that he deserves the level of persecution the Republicans are throwing at him, please do send him up the river.

            But so far, they’ve got an informant who turned out to be a liar, a tax charge which is usually a fine, and a drug/gun charge which courts have already said was bogus and which Republicans would normally go apeshit over if it were virtually anyone white but Biden’s son. And I do have to specify white, because Republicans didn’t even care when Philando Castile was killed for telling a cop he had a gun in his car that he was legally allowed to own.