Hunter Biden will appear in federal court in Los Angeles

Hunter Biden is expected to make his first court appearance Thursday on federal tax charges, six months after the collapse of a deal that would have ended the case.

Last month, a federal grand jury in California charged Mr. Biden, President Biden’s son, with evading a tax bill, failing to file and pay taxes, and filing a false or fraudulent tax return. The indictment, detailed in a damning 56-page indictment, details his years of drug abuse, debauchery, wild spending and flouting of federal tax laws.

The hearing in Los Angeles federal court is expected to be short and perfunctory, dealing with scheduling matters and paperwork deadlines. But in a somewhat unusual move, that will be overseen by Mark C. Scarsi, a Trump-appointed federal judge who will likely preside over a trial, rather than a magistrate temporarily assigned to preside over intake proceedings.

The case, coupled with a barrage of baseless allegations that the president benefited financially from his son’s consulting work on behalf of companies in Ukraine, China and Romania, is at the heart of Republican efforts to oust President Biden.

But Hunter Biden’s problems have taken on a life of their own, leaving his father with a significant political problem in an election year. The actual crimes he has been charged with so far are typically resolved in plea deals that result in probation or short prison sentences, according to current and former federal prosecutors.

Television crews were already setting up outside the downtown courthouse on Wednesday evening as Biden flew back to his California home with his lawyer Abbe Lowell after making a surprise appearance at a Republican hearing in which he claimed he had defied a congressional subpoena.

The move, intended to prove Mr. Biden was willing to testify, ended in chaos when Mr. Biden abruptly left as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, began to address him. He was followed by reporters, including one who asked about his drug use.

Hunter Biden’s indictment on tax charges and an earlier weapons charge filed in Delaware in September were not the outcomes that David C. Weiss, the special counsel who oversaw the case, or Mr. Biden, expected.

A deal reached last June that would have granted Mr. Biden broad immunity from future prosecution imploded in late July under intense questioning by a federal judge in Wilmington. The failure of the deal was for Mr. Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, to request an appointment as special counsel so that he could have access to sufficient resources to bring two cases outside his original jurisdiction.

The tough tone of the tax indictment also reflects the arrival in the summer of a new deputy on Mr. Weiss’ team, Leo Wise, a former federal prosecutor in Baltimore who has interviewed witnesses before the Southern California grand jury investigating Mr. Biden’s case. foreign business transactions and tax levies, according to people familiar with the situation.

It remains unclear whether the tax indictment will mark the end of Mr. Biden’s legal troubles. At a hearing in Delaware in July on the terms of the plea deal, Mr. Wise told the judge that prosecutors were still investigating the case and had not ruled out filing charges related to Mr. Biden’s foreign consulting work under of a law related to foreign lobbying. .

Mr. Biden “engaged in a four-year scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019,” wrote Mr. Weiss, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump was appointed, according to the indictment.

“Between 2016 and October 15, 2020, the suspect 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 except his taxes,” he says. added.

If convicted, Mr. Biden could face a maximum of 17 years in prison, Justice Department officials said.

In reality, few defendants — especially those like Mr. Biden, who have already paid their back taxes and fines — are subject to such harsh penalties. Former federal prosecutors said the high tax bill Mr. Biden built was a compelling factor in bringing the case to trial, but many similar cases resulted in plea deals to avoid the challenging work of presenting the evidence to a jury .

Another factor that could complicate Mr. Biden’s prosecution in California, and spur prosecutors to negotiate a new plea deal, is the general antipathy jurors have shown toward tax prosecutions in general — and cases brought against people whose misdeeds occurred at a time when they were struggling. with emotional problems or substance abuse.

In an interview with House Republican investigators last year, Matthew Graves, Biden’s appointed U.S. attorney in Washington, cited these factors to explain why he chose not to join Mr. Weiss in a tax prosecution last year from Mr Biden.

“You’re always concerned in these types of cases, where no one has actually been injured, about juror nullification, and you have to guard against that just because they feel sorry for the defendant,” Mr. Graves said, according to a transcript. of the interview.

Jurors, he added, tend to be sympathetic to defendants who are “going through some kind of trauma or there is documented evidence of substance abuse,” he said.