Hunter Biden Faces Nine Tax Charges in California

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Hunter Biden indicted on nine tax charges in California on Thursday as a special counsel investigation into the business dealings of the president’s son intensifies against the backdrop of the looming 2024 election. The new charges come in addition to federal firearms charges in Delaware alleging he broke a law against drug users having guns in 2018. He had been previously expected to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges as part of a plea deal, which imploded in July after a judge raised questions about it. The criminal investigation led by Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss has been open since 2018, and was expected to wind down with the plea deal that had been planned to strike with prosecutors over the summer. He would have pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges and would have entered a separate agreement on the gun charge. He would have served two years of probation rather than get jail time. After the deal fell apart, prosecutors filed three federal gun charges, alleging that he had lied about his drug use to buy a gun. Hunter Biden’s longstanding struggle with substance abuse had worsened during that period after the death of his brother Beau Biden in 2015. He still made “substantial income” in 2017 and 2018, including $2.6 million in business and consulting fees from a company he formed with the CEOs of a Chinese business conglomerate and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, but did not pay his taxes, prosecutors said in that filing.