Hunter Biden offered to plead guilty to federal tax charges but no wrongdoing, an unusual, last-minute legal maneuver that federal prosecutors quickly pushed back against.
The surprises that unfolded Thursday morning came as the president’s only surviving son walked into a Los Angeles courtroom for the start of his tax evasion trial.
Hunter Biden, 54, had previously pleaded not guilty. In federal court where his trial was to take place, Biden attempted to enter what is known as an “Alford plea,” an unusual type of guilty plea in which a defendant does not admit to the charges against him.
But U.S. Justice Department prosecutors in court said they would not accept that request. Alford motions are typically negotiated in advance, as prosecutors must get high-level approval before agreeing to them. But prosecutors in court expressed confusion about Biden’s request.
“It’s not clear to us what they’re trying to do,” a prosecutor told Mark Scarsi, the judge hearing the case.
It was not immediately clear whether Scarsi would accept the offer or proceed with a lawsuit that could reveal embarrassing details about the younger Biden’s life ahead of the November presidential election.
The son of the 46th US president is accused of failing to pay his taxes on time between 2016 and 2019, as well as two counts of filing a false tax return and tax evasion.
Hunter Biden walked into the courtroom for jury selection Thursday morning, hand-in-hand with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and flanked by Secret Service agents. He initially pleaded not guilty to charges related to his 2016-2019 taxes, and his attorneys had indicated they would argue he did not act “willfully” or with the intent to violate the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
The defense’s announcement appeared to surprise prosecutors and the judge at the Los Angeles courthouse, where more than 100 potential jurors arrived for questioning.
If Scarsi accepts the plea deal, it would avoid a weeks-long trial. It would be the second time in three months that Biden, a junior, has been in federal court, where a jury of his peers is being selected to decide whether he is guilty of a series of criminal charges.
Hunter Biden, 54, was found guilty in Delaware of three felonies related to his 2018 handgun purchase after he falsely declared on his gun purchase form that he was not a user of illegal drugs. The retrial is taking place in the city where Biden has lived for years and where prosecutors say he has lavished money on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing and other personal items — in short, everything but his taxes.”
The most serious charges relate to his 2018 tax returns, in which he sought to report his children’s college tuition and more than $27,000 in online porn as business expenses, according to prosecutors.
During pretrial hearings, Biden’s lawyers did little to challenge the documentary evidence behind the prosecution’s case. Instead, they sought to show that Biden’s drug use and failure to file his taxes correctly year after year were the result of a life scarred by trauma from a very young age.
However, Judge Mark Scarsi has indicated that he has little patience for evidence suggesting a specific cause for Biden’s drug use, and has threatened Biden’s lead attorney, Mark Geragos, with stiff financial penalties if he attempts to present such evidence to the jury.
Both the tax and weapons charges could carry maximum prison sentences of more than 20 years. However, legal experts say Biden, as a first-time felon, is likely to face far less punishment.
Related:Hunter Biden’s Tax Trial: Less Politically Charged, But Likely Just as Grim
It was a hectic summer for Joe Biden’s troubled son, during which he was convicted of crimes, rushed to Washington as pressure mounted on his father not to run for re-election, raised eyebrows by crashing White House meetings — and, according to one report, acting as his father’s “gatekeeper” — and then appeared onstage at the Democratic National Convention to bask in his father’s reflected glory.
Now that Joe Biden has dropped his re-election ambitions and thrown his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris, the political stakes of Hunter Biden’s final trial will be lower. Still, his legal troubles will take the sting out of Donald Trump’s constant complaints that he’s the target of a political witch hunt and that the president has “rigged” the justice system against him.
After Hunter Biden’s conviction in June, Joe and Jill Biden released a statement saying they would respect the legal process and would not consider a pardon for their son. The first lady has been in court most days in Delaware, but it’s unclear whether she will be in California as well.
