Joe Biden's son Hunter goes on trial for tax evasion after conviction in drug-gun case

Sept. 5, 2024, 1:42 a.m.

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Joe Biden’s son Hunter goes on trial Thursday in California on charges of tax evasion in a case that has been a huge embarrassment and distraction for the US president.

The 54-year-old is accused of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes over the past decade. He allegedly spent this money freely on luxury living, sex workers, and drug use.

The younger Biden has already spent a chunk of 2024 in court, having been convicted in Delaware of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun – a felony.

Advertisement That case featured testimony on Biden’s extravagant living, disintegrating marriage and heavy use of crack cocaine.

Now a jury in Los Angeles will sit through what are expected to be days of lurid details about a life that the defendant and his family – including the president – have long acknowledged had gone off the rails.

“They want to slime him because that is the whole purpose,” Biden’s attorney Mark Geragos reportedly said during an August hearing in which he accused prosecutors of attempted character assassination.

Biden’s defence team argues that the non-payment of taxes was an oversight in a life wrought chaos by a spiralling drug addiction and the trauma of losing his older brother, Beau, to a brain tumour in 2015.

Biden has since paid the back taxes and associated penalties imposed by authorities. Previously, he had reached a plea deal that would have kept him out of prison.

However, this agreement fell apart at the last minute. It is understood that Biden has been attempting to reach another plea deal ever since.

But that has been difficult for prosecutors whose every move in this election year is being scrutinized by Republicans eager to show the defendant is being treated leniently because he is the president’s son.

Biden has for years been a foil for his father’s political opponents, who have sought – without producing evidence – to smear the family as a group of criminals who have gained wealth and power because of Joe Biden’s career.

Advertisement The elder Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race in favour of Kamala Harris has taken much of the zeal out of the Republican fervour for making an example out of his son.

However, the special counsel, David Weiss, continues to pursue the case, aiming for convictions on one count of tax evasion and two counts of filing false returns.

If found guilty, Biden could face a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison. The gun felony, for which he has not yet been sentenced, carries a potential 25-year term.

Jury selection begins on Thursday in downtown Los Angeles with a pool of approximately 100 potential jurors.

Advertisement Opening arguments are expected on Monday.

Hunter Biden, a Yale Law School graduate and former lobbyist-turned-artist residing in Malibu, has declared that he has been free from drug use since 2019.