'Drugs, escorts and girlfriends': Hunter Biden indicted on tax charges
WASHINGTON – Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was indicted on charges he failed to pay his income taxes, Justice Department special counsel David Weiss announced Thursday.
The announcement came months after a plea deal over tax and gun charges collapsed. Under the agreement, which a federal judge rejected, Hunter Biden was set to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018.
Biden is charged in a California federal court with three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanors. He engaged in a scheme in which he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed taxes from 2016 through 2019, and also evaded tax assessment for 2018 when he filed false returns, according to the indictment.
From 2016 to 2020, Biden spent money "on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes," according to the indictment.
Separately, Weiss has charged Hunter Biden in Delaware with three federal gun charges, basically alleging he lied about using drugs when he bought a revolver in 2018. Biden pleaded not guilty to the charges Oct. 3.
"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," said Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, in a statement.
"Now, after five years of investigating with no new evidence – and two years after Hunter paid his taxes in full – the U.S. Attorney has piled on nine new charges when he had agreed just months ago to resolve this matter with a pair of misdemeanors," Lowell said.
Biden faces a maximum penalty of 17 years in prison if convicted on the tax charges, the Justice Department said in a press release. It noted that actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than maximum penalties.
Congressman Jason Smith, who heads the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement that the new charges further confirm the need for Congress to conduct an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden "in order to uncover all the facts." The charges address years in which Hunter Biden earned millions of dollars by selling access to a family brand that was built on Joe Biden's political career, he said.
Hunter Biden responds: Hunter Biden asks federal judge to dismiss gun charges based on plea deal that collapsed
What are the tax charges?
While failing to pay his taxes, Biden allegedly spent millions on an extravagant lifestyle. In 2018, for example, he made about $383,000 in payments to women and spent about $151,00 on clothes and accessories, according to the charges.
Biden faces two felony charges of filing a false return and one felony charge of tax evasion. The six misdemeanor counts are for allegedly failing to file returns or pay his taxes when required.
Prosecutors have said Hunter Biden took in $2.4 million in income in 2017 and $2.1 in 2018 through Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, a Chinese development firm, as well as domestic business interests and legal services.
Leo Wise, an assistant U.S. attorney, said at a July court hearing that an accountant prepared Biden's taxes for both of those years, but his corporate and personal taxes were not paid. During this period, Hunter Biden made large cash withdrawals and covered other expenses like car payments on a Porsche, Wise said.
Hunter Biden told the court a "third party" paid the back taxes along with interest and fees pursuant to a personal loan he has not begun to repay.
Why did the judge reject the plea agreement?
Prosecutors had recommended probation for the two misdemeanor tax charges in the plea agreement, despite each carrying a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison. The agreement over the gun charge anticipated a pretrial diversion program that would wipe the charge off Biden’s record if he complied.
House Republicans called the agreement a “sweetheart deal” for lack of jail time.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected the deal because of a dispute between prosecutors and defense lawyers over what it meant. Biden's lawyers argued that he would be protected from prosecution in future cases, but prosecutors denied that.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hunter Biden indicted on tax charges after failed plea deal
