CNN
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The federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case criticized President Joe Biden for attempting to “rewrite history” in his justification for pardoning his son.

District Judge Mark Scarsi wrote in a five-page order Tuesday that some of the “representations” in the president’s Sunday statement announcing the pardon “are inconsistent with the record of the case.” Scarsi particularly disagreed with Biden’s argument that his son’s tax problems were solely due to his battle with alcohol and drug addiction.

“The Constitution grants the President broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States…but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history,” Scarsi wrote.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in September to nine tax offenses stemming from $1.4 million in unpaid taxes. He was also convicted by a jury in June of illegally purchasing and possessing firearms as a drug user. The president’s pardon specifically granted clemency for the tax and gun offenses from Hunter Biden’s existing cases, as well as any potential federal crimes he may have committed “from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”

In the pardon announcement Sunday evening, Joe Biden claimed his son was one of many Americans “who paid their taxes late because of serious addiction.” But as the judge pointed out, as part of his guilty plea, Hunter Biden admitted that he had failed to pay his tax debts, even after he got sober and despite having the means to pay them off.

The judge also rebuked the president for claiming his son was “singled out” for political reasons. Earlier this year, Scarsi rejected this very argument from Hunter Biden, who wanted to bring the impeachment on this basis. (The judge in the Hunter Biden gun case also rejected the selective prosecution theory.)

Joe Biden’s announcement said “no reasonable person” could conclude that this was not a politically motivated prosecution. But Scarsi pointed out that numerous Justice Department officials, including the attorney general, oversaw the case — and therefore “this legion of federal officials … are, in the president’s estimation, unreasonable people.”

Scarsi, a respected and no-nonsense lawyer, was appointed by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan vote in 2020.

He said he would officially end proceedings in the tax case once he was provided with an authorized copy of the pardon documents.

Meanwhile, the judge overseeing the Hunter Biden gun case said in an order Tuesday that “all proceedings in this case are hereby dismissed.”

Hunter Biden’s lawyers had asked Judge Maryellen Noreika to formally dismiss the charges rather than simply dismiss or dismiss future proceedings.

Special counsel David Weiss, who brought the two federal cases, argued that “termination” rather than “dismissal” was the appropriate way to end the case and said cases for other pardoned defendants were handled that way. Prosecutors in Weiss’ office also wanted the charges to stand as originally filed rather than be formally dismissed.