Hunter Biden Pleads Not Guilty as Plea Deal in Tax Crimes Case Is Put on Hold

The son of President Joe Biden was initially expected to plead guilty to just two misdemeanor tax charges as part of a deal struck with prosecutors

Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to federal misdemeanor charges of ​​failing to pay federal income tax after a judge said she was not ready to accept a plea deal he had initially struck with prosecutors, which would have allowed him to avoid a felony gun charge.

The first plea deal that Hunter — the son of President Joe Biden — had reached with prosecutors would have seen him plead guilty to two tax charges and reach an agreement on the felony gun charges.

But that deal fell apart in court on Wednesday, when U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika said she had concerns about linking the tax plea agreement to the deal prosecutors reached on Hunter's gun charge.

The plea deal came in the wake of a five-year investigation by federal prosecutors, the FBI and the IRS, which saw Hunter charged with two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay federal income taxes, as well as a felony charge of illegally possessing a weapon.

As NBC News notes, Hunter's initial plea deal was struck with U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, a Trump appointee who was kept on the case by President Biden. But Republicans still took issue with the initial deal, arguing that it was too lenient and, citing an I.R.S. whistleblower, arguing that the Justice Department intentionally meddled in the case. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has rebutted this assertion. 

The Justice Department’s probe into Hunter officially began in 2018 under former President Donald Trump. The investigation was initially focused on his business dealings with foreign interests — a topic that was much-discussed in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, particularly by Trump.

But the investigation reportedly evolved with time, focusing also on Hunter's income taxes and paperwork he used to purchase a firearm in 2018, on which he denied being "an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug or any other controlled substance" despite publicly admitting to struggles with addiction.

CNBC reported that the investigation into Hunter was led by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware who was appointed to his role by Trump, and whom Attorney General Garland recently described as "capable of making any decisions that he feels are appropriate."

Hunter revealed that federal prosecutors in Delaware were investigating his "tax affairs" about a month after his father was elected president, later telling CBS News that he was "being completely cooperative" in the investigation.

Hunter has no official involvement in the White House and did not work on his father's presidential campaign, but was nonetheless a major character in the 2020 face-off between his dad and Trump.

During a debate between the two presidential candidates, Trump accused Hunter of earning $3.5 million from the wife of the former mayor of Moscow, a reference to a report released by two GOP-led Senate panels during Trump's term in office. That report delved into Hunter's relationship with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which once gave him a lucrative position on its board.

In that same debate, Trump also attacked Hunter for his "cocaine use."

"Like a lot of people we know at home, my son ... had a drug problem," the elder Biden responded. "[Hunter] worked on it. He fixed it. And I'm proud of him. But he wasn't given tens of millions ... that is totally discredited."

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Hunter has five children, including daughters Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy with his first wife Kathleen Buhle, a son Beau with his current wife Melissa Cohen, and a child he had with a woman in Arkansas that spawned a paternity suit.

Reports have indicated that the woman with whom he fathered a child — Lunden Roberts — testified in the case against him, along with another woman with whom he had previously had an affair.

In June, Biden appeared in an Arkansas state court for a child-support payment hearing regarding the child he had with Roberts. That case was settled later that month.

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