LOS ANGELES (news agencies) — Hunter Biden plans to change his not guilty plea in his federal tax case, his defense attorney said Thursday just as jury selection was set to begin.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell told the judge about Hunter Biden’s plans to change his previous plea, just months after the president’s son was convicted of gun charges in a separate case, but did not provide further details.
Mark Geragos, another Hunter Biden lawyer, said in a text message that the president’s son intends to enter what’s referred to as an Alford plea, an unusual plea under which a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence to gain a conviction.
“There is overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” Lowell told the judge. “This can be resolved today. It’s not a complicated issue.”
Hunter Biden is facing misdemeanor and felony charges over what prosecutors say was a four-year scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while pulling in millions of dollars from foreign business entities. He is already confronting potential prison time after a Delaware jury convicted him in June of lying on a 2018 federal form to purchase a gun that he possessed for 11 days.
A last-minute plea would allow Hunter Biden to avoid a trial that was expected to put a spotlight on his foreign business dealings, which Republicans have spent years scrutinizing to accuse his father — without evidence — of corruption in connection with his son’s work overseas.
The potential political ramifications of the trial just weeks before the presidential election may have faded somewhat since President Biden’s July decision to drop out of the 2024 race. But the president is deeply concerned with the well-being of his son, so the trial is likely to weigh heavily on him in the final months of his five-decade political career.
Hunter Biden walked into the courtroom holding hands with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and flanked by Secret Service agents. Initially, he pleaded not guilty to the charges related to his 2016 through 2019 taxes and his attorneys have indicated they will argue he didn’t act “willfully,” or with the intention to break the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses last year in a deal with the Justice Department that would allow him to avoid prosecution in the gun case if he stayed out of trouble. But the agreement imploded after a judge questioned unusual aspects of it, and he was subsequently indicted in the two cases.
His decision to change his plea Thursday came after the judge issued some unfavorable pre-trial rulings for the defense, including rejecting a proposed defense expert lined up to testify about addiction.
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