In a surprising legal maneuver, special counsel David Weiss filed a motion in the California federal court overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case, urging the judge not to dismiss the charges despite the presidential pardon announced by Joe Biden on Sunday.

The pardon, which spans from January 1, 2014, to December 1, 2024, covers Hunter Biden’s June jury-trial convictions for lying on a federal form about his drug use when purchasing a handgun. It also includes his September conviction on nine counts related to his failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019.

The first son had faced a maximum of 17 years in prison for his tax offenses.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Hunter Biden claimed in a statement issued along with his pardon announcement.

In a Monday court filing in a federal district court in California, Weiss wrote, “There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case.”