On Monday, lawyers representing Hunter Biden initially sought a new trial after his recent conviction for lying about his drug use to purchase a gun.
They claimed that Judge Maryellen Noreika lacked jurisdiction due to pending rulings by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
However, they quickly withdrew the request. Judge Noreika, appointed by former President Donald Trump, had previously dismissed several motions to drop the charges against Biden, including those related to his Second Amendment rights.
Noreika’s rulings were upheld by a three-judge panel, but the appeals court has not yet made a decision on a request for reconsideration by the full Third Circuit.
As reported by the New York Post, Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell initially stated, “The Third Circuit did not issue its mandate regarding the dismissal of either appeal at that time or up to now. Therefore, when this Court impaneled the jury on June 3, 2024 and proceeded to trial, it did so without jurisdiction.”
Shortly after this statement, it was discovered that the motion had been mysteriously removed. A notation in the court docket indicated that “The Motion for a New Trial… has been deleted at the request of counsel,” describing it as a “correcting entry.”
The reason for this abrupt withdrawal remains unclear.
More from the New York Post:
The Third Circuit rejected one of Hunter’s appeals on May 9, finding it couldn’t make a ruling before trial.
The appellate court on May 28 also shot down the Biden scion’s other bid to toss the three gun charges he faced, finding that it couldn’t rule before a jury verdict.
Hunter, 54, was found guilty June 11 of falsely claiming he didn’t use drugs when he bought a .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver on Oct. 12, 2018, when he was actually hooked on crack cocaine at the time.
He faces up to 25 years behind bars at his sentencing. Noreika has yet to set a sentencing date.
A spokesperson for special counsel David Weiss’ office declined to comment.
Hunter Biden decided to withdraw his lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani and Robert Costello last week. The lawsuit, which was filed in September 2023 in a federal court in California, had accused them of tampering with information on Biden’s well-known laptop.
Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, filed the stipulation for dismissal on Thursday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The document requested the court to dismiss the lawsuit against Giuliani and Robert Costello “without prejudice, with each party bearing its own attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses,” according to the New York Post.
“This dismissal – along with Hunter Biden’s conviction based on evidence taken from the laptop – is a vindication for Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Costello as well as all of the media outlets who broke the laptop story in 2020 and suffered orchestrated censorship by social media, the leftist mainstream media, and others who engaged in election interference,” Sibley told The Post.