Hunter Biden expected to enter not guilty plea on federal tax charges

Hunter Biden is expected to plead not guilty during his arraignment Thursday in Los Angeles on federal charges related to an alleged tax evasion scheme after a plea deal fell apart on tax charges over the summer. 

President Joe Biden's son was hit with nine felony and misdemeanor tax charges in December over what prosecutors said was a "four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019." Prosecutors also alleged that Hunter Biden, 53, tried to evade paying taxes in 2018 by filing false returns.

Hunter Biden is returning to California to enter his plea Thursday after making a surprise appearance in D.C. during the House Oversight Committee's hearing Wednesday on a resolution to hold him in contempt for not complying with a subpoena related to the congressional probe of his family's business.

"Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought," Hunter Biden's defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, has previously said, according to The Associated Press. 

Hunter Biden was set to take a plea deal over the summer in a Delaware federal court on two misdemeanor tax charges, but it fell apart after presiding federal Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned its constitutionality when placed alongside a pre-trial diversion agreement on a felony firearms charge. He was indicted in Delaware federal court in September on firearms charges to which he pleaded not guilty. He has subsequently tried to have those charges dismissed.

If convicted on the tax charges, Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison.

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