Hunter Biden wants his trial for criminal failure to file and pay his taxes to begin just days after Labor Day — the unofficial kickoff of the final sprint to the election. A judge in California will decide Wednesday whether or not to push the trial back, even as a Delaware judge in the first son’s gun possession case recently denied a similar motion. 

In a court filing sent to Judge Marc Scarsi of the Central District of California, Mr. Biden’s attorneys say they need more time to interview potential expert witnesses for the tax defense. They also cite the June 3 trial in Delaware for his purchase and possession of a firearm as a reason to delay the proposed June 20 tax trial date. 

Judge Scarsi will hold another hearing on May 29 to hear “further requests” ahead of the June 20 trial. 

According to Politico, the president’s aides are worried about the “psychological torment” the commander-in-chief may suffer during the two trials. “He worries about Hunter every single day, from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep,” an anonymous advisor said to the outlet. “That will only pick up during a trial.”

The prosecution has been investigating Mr. Biden for potential tax violations since Mr. Weiss became the United States Attorney for Delaware in 2018. They have charged him with avoiding more than $1.4 million in tax between 2016 and 2019. 

According to the indictment, Mr. Biden made a gross income of nearly $8 million in those four years. He spent more than half of that money on personal expenses, including more than $1.5 million in cash withdrawals at a time when he was crippled by a severe drug addiction. He also spent nearly $700,000 on payments to “various women,” $400,000 on clothing and accessories, and $300,000 on his children’s tuition. Mr. Biden dispersed more than $70,000 for rehabilitation and nearly $200,000 on “adult entertainment.”

He faces four misdemeanor charges of failing to pay his taxes, two misdemeanor charges of failing to file, two felony counts of failing to file, and one felony charge of filing a false return. If convicted, Mr. Biden faces up to 17 years in federal prison and a hefty fine. 

According to an exhibit list that was filed with the Central California district court, Mr. Weiss plans to include more than 300 pieces of evidence at trial, including a number of text messages and emails between Mr. Biden and his business partners during those years he allegedly avoided the taxes. 

Before the tax trial begins, however, Mr. Biden is expected to go to trial for allegedly purchasing a firearm while addicted to drugs and lying to the federal government on an official Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms form in 2018. On Friday, he will appear in a Delaware courtroom for a pretrial conference meeting with his attorneys and the prosecution. 

His lawyers have made several motions to dismiss the case in the lead-up to the trial. They have argued that a plea agreement he negotiated with Mr. Weiss was actually still in effect, that he is the victim of vindictive prosecution because of his last name, and that Mr. Weiss is only bringing the charges due to pressure from congressional Republicans. 

The presiding judge in the gun case, Judge Maryellen Noreika, dismissed all of his motions to dismiss and has set a trial date for June 3. She said he had no evidence of vindictive prosecution, writing that she was “unable to find any instance where a defendant’s familial relationship to a politically-important person on its own gave rise to a claim of selective prosecution.”

“Even if that were a cognizable claim, however, Defendant has failed to come forward with ‘clear evidence’ that similarly situated individuals have not been prosecuted for comparable firearm-related conduct,” the jurist wrote. 

When Mr. Biden appealed her rulings on the motions to dismiss to the Third Circuit, a panel of three judges — who were appointed to the bench by presidents of both parties, including Mr. Biden’s own father — ruled unanimously against his appeal saying he did not have the standing to demand a review of Judge Noreika’s rulings.