What to know about Hunter Biden’s tax trial

By Marshall Cohen, CNN

Los Angeles (CNN) — Hunter Biden is set to go on trial Thursday for alleged tax crimes, in a case that was once seen as a potential political liability for President Joe Biden, but is now a sordid closing chapter to his presidency.

Special counsel David Weiss, who has investigated Hunter Biden’s finances and foreign deals since 2018, filed the nine-count indictment in December, accusing the president’s son of failing to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes and executing a tax-evasion scheme.

Hunter Biden, 54, pleaded not guilty and says he belatedly paid all of his tax debts after regaining his sobriety in 2019, amid a lifelong struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Thursday at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles, the trial could last about one month. The trial will feature salacious details about Hunter Biden’s extravagant partying and spending during the peak of his addiction, including money for strippers, escorts and luxury cars – all while he allegedly didn’t pay taxes.

The stakes are high for Hunter Biden, who was convicted of three gun felonies in June and will be sentenced for those crimes after the election. Most federal cases are resolved with a guilty plea, and it’s always possible Hunter Biden opts for a last-minute deal instead of rolling the dice with another trial.

Joe Biden has unfettered power to pardon his son or wipe away his sentence if he’s convicted in the tax case. The president has repeatedly ruled that out in his public comments, though that was before he dropped out of the 2024 race.

Here’s everything you need to know about the trial.

How did we get here?

The investigation began in 2018, when Weiss was the Trump-appointed US attorney for Delaware. Over the years, Weiss scrutinized Hunter Biden’s finances, his lucrative business deals, a gun purchase, potential violations of foreign lobbying laws and more.

Everything appeared to be winding down last summer, when the parties announced a plea deal. Hunter Biden would’ve admitted to two tax misdemeanors, resolved the gun matter and likely avoided jailtime. But the deal imploded under scrutiny from a judge.

At that point, Weiss requested “special counsel” status from Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee. The request was approved and Weiss later filed two indictments against Hunter Biden: a gun case in Delaware and a tax case in California.

CNN reported last month that there were plea discussions earlier in the summer between Weiss’ team and Hunter Biden’s lawyers, but that did not lead to an agreement at that time to resolve the tax charges.

In the year since Weiss became a special counsel, he has spent more than $3.7 million of taxpayer dollars on his investigation, according to Justice Department disclosures.

What are the charges?

There are nine charges in the tax indictment against Hunter Biden. If convicted on all counts, he could face as much as 17 years in federal prison and up to $750,000 in fines.

The most serious allegations in this case stem from the three felony charges: tax evasion for 2018, filing a false personal tax return for 2018 and filing a false corporate tax return for 2018. Prosecutors say Hunter Biden claimed tax deductions for personal expenses that were disguised as business expenses, significantly lowering his tax bill.

According to the indictment, some of those supposed “business expenses” included $43,693 to stay at the famous Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, $30,000 for his daughter’s tuition at Columbia Law School, $11,500 for two nights with an escort, $3,947 at a strip club, $1,727 for a Lamborghini rental and $275 for dinner at Nobu.

He is also accused of failing to pay taxes on time for 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, and failing to file tax returns on time in 2017 and 2018. These six counts are misdemeanors.

Hunter Biden had all this money to spend on “everything but his taxes,” as prosecutors put it, thanks to lucrative deals in China, Ukraine, Romania and elsewhere. He earned more than $7 million between 2016 and 2020, working for foreign clients on energy consulting, lobbying, corporate advising and legal services, according to court filings.

Under last year’s plea deal that fell apart, Hunter Biden planned to plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay his 2017 and 2018 taxes when they were due. (He owed nearly $1.2 million, according to court filings.) After the deal collapsed, those two charges were included in the nine-count indictment that Hunter Biden is now facing.

What is Biden’s defense?

Hunter Biden’s defense team is led by Mark Geragos, the high-profile attorney who has represented celebrities including Michael Jackson, Chris Brown and Colin Kaepernick.

At a pretrial hearing last month, Geragos said Hunter Biden’s addiction would be “the centerpiece of the defense.” His team wrote in court filings that Hunter Biden was “severely addicted to alcohol and drugs” when he fell behind on his taxes, but after he got sober, he took concrete steps to get his finances in order and paid all his debts.

Defense attorneys asked for permission to present evidence about Hunter Biden’s belated $2 million payment to the IRS in 2021. But the judge refused, citing binding legal precedents that late tax payments aren’t a viable defense to these alleged crimes.

“Evidence of late payment here is irrelevant to Mr. Biden’s state of mind at the time he allegedly committed the charged crimes,” US District Judge Mark Scarsi wrote.

Julian André, a former federal tax prosecutor who is a partner at the law firm McDermott Will & Emery, said this and other pretrial rulings likely “hamper the defense strategy.”

“If you rob a liquor store, if you go back a year later, after the police started investigating the crime, and return what you stole, that doesn’t change the fact that you robbed a liquor store,” André said. “That’s one of the arguments that the prosecutors made.”

For a conviction, prosecutors must prove Hunter Biden “willfully” broke the law. They need to convince jurors he wasn’t acting in good faith when preparing his allegedly fraudulent 2018 taxes and that he intentionally missed the other tax deadlines. Hunter Biden’s lawyers say his addiction impaired his ability to act with the proper willfulness.

“Willfulness is a step beyond intentional. … It’s hard to argue you have a good-faith belief that you don’t have to pay if there’s an email telling you that you have to pay,” André said, pointing to emails in the indictment between Hunter Biden and his accountants.

Who is the judge?

Ever since the case landed on his docket, Scarsi has taken a non-nonsense approach.

He has kept things moving, often issuing quick rulings after oral arguments on important matters like Hunter Biden’s unsuccessful bid to dismiss the charges. He has done his homework – demonstrating his fluency with the convoluted history of the investigation.

Former President Donald Trump appointed Scarsi during his final year in office, and Scarsi was confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan vote in September 2020. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was a US senator from California at the time, did not vote.

Scarsi told senators he was a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association and the conservative Federalist Society. He was born in Syracuse, New York, and got his law degree from Georgetown University. Before becoming a judge, he had a 30-year career at Los Angeles law firms, where he specialized in intellectual property litigation.

Who are the witnesses?

The tax trial overlaps significantly with parts of Hunter Biden’s recent gun trial, which featured testimony about his drug addiction from some of his past romantic partners.

Court filings indicate that prosecutors will present testimony from Hallie Biden – the widow of Hunter Biden’s late brother Beau, who subsequently dated Hunter after Beau died in 2015. CNN also previously reported that Lunden Roberts, the mother of one of his children, who witnessed his crack cocaine abuse, has been subpoenaed to testify.

Prosecutors said they have roughly 30 witnesses lined up for trial. This includes a stripper that Hunter Biden allegedly paid, and an employee from a company called Streamray, a pornography website where he allegedly spent approximately $30,000.

Hunter Biden’s former business partners could also testify, including some who were also interviewed in the House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. The tax case overlaps significantly with that GOP inquiry, delving into many of the same foreign deals. But prosecutors have never backed up Republicans’ unproven assertions that Joe Biden was in business with his son and abused his office to enrich his family.

Who is on the jury?

The jury pool hails from Los Angeles and six nearby counties. Taken together, these counties supported Joe Biden over Trump in 2020 by a landslide margin, 63% to 35%.

About 120 California residents have been summoned for jury service, the judge said.

They will be peppered with questions about their views on taxation, their participation in political activities, if any of their close family members struggled with addiction, and whether their views on the 2024 election hamper their ability to fairly judge this case.

The goal is to seat a jury of 12, plus four alternates. Their verdicts must be unanimous.

Could there be a pardon?

Looming over the entire trial is the possibility that Joe Biden will pardon his son. As president, Joe Biden could do that at any time or reduce his sentence if convicted.

Joe Biden has personally ruled out a pardon or commutation, and so have his White House advisers. But that was before he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.

Shortly after Hunter Biden’s gun conviction in June, Joe Biden said, “I’m not going to do anything. I said I’d abide by the jury decision. I will do that. And I will not pardon him.”

There aren’t public indications that Joe Biden’s thinking has changed. But he’s famously protective of his son, and presidents have pardoned family members before. Decisions are likely to happen between father and son, as the term wraps up, CNN reported.

“If Hunter Biden is found guilty, I can’t imagine his father will want him in prison,” CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “He lost Beau to cancer. His other son going to prison would be a very inglorious way to end his presidency, filled with a lot of sorrow, pain and hurt. Most fathers would lean into the pardon, if they had that power.”

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