Fox News Goes All In For Hunter Biden L.A. Court Appearance; Tax Charges Trial Set For June As POTUS Offspring Enters Plea

Dominic Patten
·4 min read
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“Live coverage here, as it happens,” Fox News’ Martha MacCallum declared Thursday with an on-screen Breaking News alert. “We are now minutes away from Hunter Biden’s arraignment in a Los Angeles courtroom!”

Mere hours after Donald Trump received the judicial equivalent of a spanking in the courtroom at New York City fraud trial, Biden’s courtroom appearance on the other side of the country had FNC in a lather.

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In the federal courthouse in downtown LA, Biden entered a not-guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarci. The hearing, Biden’s first appearance in the case, lasted about 30 minutes with Trump-appointed judge Scarci making sure Biden was aware a warrant for his arrest could be issued if he failed to comply with any conditions of release like drinking or having a gun.

“Do you understand?” the judge asked.

“I do, your honor,” Biden responded, with his attorneys by his side.

Putting a motions hearing on the schedule for March 27, Scarci then set a trial date of June 20. That raises the possibility that the president’s son would be on trial at the same time Trump will in one of his criminal cases, though court dates often are changed or pushed back.

Biden left right after the hearing and did not speak to Fox News or any other media outside the courthouse.

Battling Congressional demands to testify behind closed doors and a GOP impeachment of his father, Hunter Biden faces a potential 17 years behind bars if found guilty of all tax charges. Well documented to have not paid his taxes during an extended bender involving drugs, booze and sex workers that lasted several years, the now clean and sober Biden has fully paid all of the nearly $1.5 million in missed taxes and subsequent penalties.

Long a target for Joe Biden’s political enemies, Hunter looked to have put these matters behind him until a plea deal with the DOJ blew up in July 2023. Facing Special Prosecutor David Weiss, Biden was indicted on the tax charges in December 2023. He also is up against a trio of federal charges in Delaware for incorrectly filling out firearm forms and thereby illegally possessing a gun. He has pleaded not guilty on those charges.

Starting with a live shot of the federal courthouse downtown even before Hunter Biden arrived, the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable newser pulled out all the stops to make the 1 p.m. PT hearing one of the top stories of a busy day. Amid a cascade of correspondents, contributors and a Republican congressman, even Biden’s motorcade made it into the spotlight.

“These are nine charges, federal charges, three of them are felonies,” Fox’s David Spunt told MacCallum in a live hit after Biden had arrived at the courthouse. “Busy times,” MacCallum responded, before cutting to an MSNBC segment from today with First Lady Jill Biden calling the GOP “cruel” for going after her son.

“Hunter Biden was cruel to himself, the American public and the American taxpayer,” replied Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX). “This is all on him.”

Still, at one point in the extended interview, even MacCallum, who co-hosted Fox’s town hall with Trump last night, had to pull the Texas Congressman back from the brink. “He has not been charged with sex-trafficking,” MacCallum corrected Fallon as he let loose on Hunter Biden, calling him a “career criminal.”

Earlier, Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich took out her own shiv against the younger Biden and the incumbent President. “There’s the tax charges on the money, so where was the money coming from?” Pavlich said during an on-air panel discussion. “It was part of Hunter Biden’s grand business scheme around the world that Joe Biden was a partner to and involved in, which the White House doesn’t want to talk about.”

While MSNBC focused on the chaos of the closing day of Trump’s fraud trial, the upcoming Iowa caucuses and inflation, CNN had a full package on Trump’s legal woes and the faint nomination hopes of his GOP rivals. It wasn’t until almost 1:30 p.m. PT that the pro-Biden MSNBC covered the hearing — just as Fox was back on it again.

Hunter Biden’s plea hearing in Los Angeles came a day after he made a surprise appearance on Capitol Hill, catching Republicans off guard. Biden and his attorneys sat in the gallery of the House Oversight Committee as GOP members moved to find him in contempt of Congress for not showing up for a closed-door deposition. Biden, though, has offered to testify publicly.

The committee voted along party lines to advance the contempt finding to the full House.

Ted Johnson contributed to this report.

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