Hunter Biden accuses government of mistaking sawdust for cocaine

An attorney for Hunter Biden said government prosecutors could not be taken at their word after he said they misrepresented sawdust as cocaine.

In a 22-page motion to compel discovery in the gun case against Biden, lawyer Abbe Lowell said the prosecution had not fulfilled its burden to turn over documents.

"The prosecution's latest filing amplifies why Mr. Biden and the Court cannot take the prosecution's assertions concerning its discovery production or what that discovery reveals at face value," Lowell declared before calling photographic evidence into doubt.

"The prosecution is flat out wrong — both that Mr. Biden 'took' this photograph and in claiming that it depicts 'cocaine,'" Lowell added in Tuesday's filing. "Multiple sources have pointed out, and a review of discovery confirms, this is actually a photo of sawdust from an expert carpenter and it was sent to Mr. Biden, not vice versa."

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According to the motion, the photograph had been provided by Biden's then-psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow.

"The message accompanying that photo was meant to convey that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction," the filing continued. "Mistaking sawdust for cocaine sounds more like a storyline from one of the 1980s Police Academy comedies than what should be expected in a high-profile prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice."

The Justice Department has also claimed that cocaine was found on Biden's gun holster in charging documents.

An informant who made derogatory claims about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter was recently arrested by the FBI after a grand jury charged him with false statements and obstruction.

Alexander Smirnov, who was identified as a confidential human source in the investigation, was arrested at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.

According to the indictment, Smirnov falsely claimed to FBI agents that executives at the Ukrainian industrial company Burisma told him they hired Hunter Biden to "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems," at a time when Biden was vice president and bribed both of them for their efforts.

At the time, Biden had been instrumental in pressuring Ukraine to remove prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, which Republicans have claimed was to prevent an investigation of Burisma. But this has been repeatedly debunked; Biden was acting in line with U.S. policy, Shokin was not planning to investigate Burisma, and international observers had accused him of corruption.