As Hunter Biden vacations with father, his lawyers decry 'character assassination'

Hunter Biden joined his family onstage this week in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, where President Biden gave a valedictory address and the crowd roared, “Thank you, Joe.” A more grave proceeding came Wednesday in Los Angeles as a federal judge held a final hearing before Hunter Biden’s criminal trial on tax evasion and fraud charges, slated to begin Sept. 5.

The president’s son, a resident of Malibu, was not present in court. The 54-year-old remained with the rest of the Biden clan, including his father, on a family vacation more than 100 miles north at the Santa Ynez Valley estate of businessman and Democratic Party donor Joe Kiani. In his absence, prosecutors and his defense team, led by veteran attorney Mark Geragos, argued acrimoniously about what jurors will — and will not — hear about the younger Biden’s tumultuous, drug-fueled life from 2016 until he became sober in 2019.

At one point, Geragos accused federal prosecutors of “character assassination” because of their efforts to limit what the defense could tell jurors about Hunter Biden’s addiction and the roots of it. “They want to slime him,” Geragos said. “Because that is the whole purpose — making him look bad” and putting on a “salacious, typical independent counsel-style prosecution.

” The president’s son faced another trial in June, when a jury in Delaware found him guilty of illegally buying a gun. Both prosecutions were set to fuel a barrage of attacks on the .