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Politics Dec 20, 2023
Hunter Biden issues a statement on Capitol Hill regarding the subpoena and investigation on Dec. 13. | Screenshot from C-SPAN video
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President Joe Biden’s son Hunter is expected to make his initial appearance Jan. 11 in Los Angeles federal court on tax charges.
Hunter Biden was charged in an indictment released Dec. 7 on nine federal tax charges for allegedly refusing to pay his taxes, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Biden, 53, of Malibu, “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” the indictment alleges.
His attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that “based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought.”
Between 2016 and Oct. 15, 2020, “the defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,” according to the 56-page indictment.
Hunter Biden faces as many as 17 years in prison if convicted of all the charges. He faces three felony counts, including tax evasion, and six misdemeanor counts of failure to pay taxes. It is not known if he will be asked to enter a plea at his initial court appearance next month in downtown Los Angeles.
The president’s son is also under indictment on federal gun charges in Delaware federal court. In July, he had agreed to plead guilty there to two misdemeanor tax counts and acknowledge a firearms violation without a conviction, receiving no jail time. But the deal collapsed when a federal judge questioned its terms and refused to sign off on it.
“Now, after five years of investigating with no new evidence — and two years after Hunter paid his taxes in full — the U.S. Attorney has piled on nine new charges when he had agreed just months ago to resolve this matter with a pair of misdemeanors,” Lowell said after the Los Angeles charges were announced.
Described in the indictment as a Georgetown- and Yale-educated lawyer, lobbyist, consultant and businessperson, Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate and a Chinese private equity fund during the time of the tax allegations.
“He negotiated and executed contracts and agreements for business and legal services that paid millions of dollars of compensation to him and/or his domestic corporations, Owasco PC and Owasco LLC,” according to the indictment.
In addition to his business interests, the defendant was an employee of a multinational law firm, the document states.
At the time of the now-defunct plea deal in Delaware, Biden said he had forgotten to pay his taxes during a period when he was in the grip of drug addiction.
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