Los Angeles
CNN
—
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty Thursday to all nine charges in his federal tax case, a surprise move on the day that a bitter, weeks-long trial was supposed to begin.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarci accepted the guilty plea after a dramatic, complicated, day-long hearing in Los Angeles that began with the standard jury selection process.
The judge, appointed by President Trump, set the sentencing date for December 16. President Joe Biden’s son faces up to 17 years in prison for tax evasion, filing false tax returns and failing to pay taxes. The judge also said he could face a huge fine, possibly as much as $1.3 million.
But that trial, and Hunter Biden’s expected June sentencing in a separate firearms trial, have raised the possibility of a presidential pardon or commutation — a position President Joe Biden has repeatedly denied, and which the White House spokesman reiterated on Thursday.
The guilty plea was called an “open plea” because it was a unilateral move by Hunter Biden and was made without any prior leniency arrangement with prosecutors. Leo Wise, the hardline prosecutor leading the case, told the judge that “like everyone else in the courtroom this morning, we were shocked” when Biden’s team tried to change his not guilty plea.
After the hearing, Biden’s lawyer, Abe Lowell, told reporters that Biden’s son “put his family first today, which was a significant and loving act,” rather than subject the family to yet another public trial over addiction and domestic strife.
“After watching prosecutors exploit his family’s grief in the Delaware trial and attempting to do the same in California, Mr. Hunter decided to take a plea deal to protect his loved ones from unnecessary pain and cruel humiliation,” Lowell said. “This plea deal prevents a show trial that does not reveal all the facts or serve the true meaning of justice.”
This is something of a victory for David Weiss, the Trump-appointed special counsel who served as the federal attorney for Delaware and who also successfully prosecuted the firearms case. In a statement Thursday night, his team touted Hunter Biden being “convicted” of tax evasion, but the result means the trial they’ve been working on since they began their investigation in 2018 will never happen.
About 120 potential jurors waited in a secluded assembly room throughout the day while prosecutors and Biden’s defense team argued in court about how to proceed.
As the hearing began Thursday morning, Judge Lowell surprised the court by saying Biden wanted to enter an “Alford plea,” in which Biden maintains his innocence but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him. The tactic would allow Biden to skip trial and accept the judge’s punishment at sentencing.
But Biden’s team withdrew that plan after strong objections from prosecutors, and the judge said he wanted to review the matter and rehear the case on Friday morning.
“Let me be clear: the United States is opposed to the Alford plea agreement,” Wise said, adding, “Hunter Biden is not innocent. Hunter Biden is guilty. He is not permitted to plead guilty under special conditions.”
After a break in the hearing, Lowell said Biden had “enough is enough” and was prepared to move forward with an “open plea” to unilaterally admit guilt.
Lowell said Biden was going to pursue an open plea deal because the special prosecutor was trying to squeeze “every pound of flesh” and “every drop of blood” out of him. Wise countered, saying Biden was to blame for the situation.
“We’re not here because of the government’s actions. He set in motion that chain of events,” Wise said, calling it “offensive” that Lowell was portraying Biden as a “victim” in the prosecution.
Under oath, during standard questioning in every federal plea deal, Biden said no one had promised to persuade him to plead guilty. The president’s son also testified that no one pressured him to plead guilty.
“Do you agree that you committed every element of every crime?” Scalci asked.
“Yes,” Biden replied.
Prosecutors also read the full 56-page indictment during the plea-bargaining process, which took about 90 minutes, recounting salacious details about Biden’s lavish spending on strippers and escorts, luxury cars and luxury hotels without paying taxes.
Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen, left the courtroom shortly after the indictment was read, missing some of the indictment’s most explicit and embarrassing details.
The tax trial would have been Biden’s second criminal trial this year, after he was convicted in June in Wilmington, Delaware, on three federal firearms charges. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 13, and he could face up to 25 years in prison on those charges.
According to the indictment, Biden failed to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes and committed tax evasion by filing tax returns with fraudulent business deductions.
The president’s son ultimately paid roughly $2 million in back taxes and fines after learning of the investigation and getting sober after a long struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.
Weeks before the trial, the judge blocked Biden’s defense team from telling jurors about his late tax payments and potential addiction, dealing a major blow to their defense strategy.
Special counsel Weiss herself sat in the front row of the courtroom during the hearing, but remained on her knees and silently stamped her feet for much of the time as prosecutors laid out the culmination of a six-year investigation into Biden’s finances and foreign dealings.
Biden’s face remained stoic for much of the hearing. After the first break, just before the judge took his seat in the courtroom, he stared blankly ahead for several minutes. As Wise read the indictment, Biden followed closely on his own annotated copy.
Biden’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski, also attended the hearing and sat with members of the public and reporters in the courtroom. Bobulinski, a fierce critic of the Biden family, also testified in the House Republican impeachment inquiry, which also scrutinized many of the overseas transactions that were part of the tax case. Bobulinski and other Republican lawmakers have made unsubstantiated allegations that Joe Biden was deeply involved in overseas business dealings that benefited Biden.
It’s worth noting that Lowell played a leading role in the plea agreement hearing. He was Biden’s lead lawyer in the Delaware firearms case, but was absent from a key pretrial hearing in the California tax case two weeks ago. Instead, high-profile lawyer Mark Geragos, who was hired earlier this summer, played a leading role in that hearing. Lowell delivered all of Biden’s arguments on Thursday.
Asked by CNN after the hearing if he had been in touch with President Joe Biden about a pardon, Geragos responded, “The question you have to ask is, are you disappointed that you won’t be able to get this case to trial?”
The complicated and drawn-out plea deal reached Thursday in Los Angeles was reminiscent of a similar hearing last summer in Delaware, where the same parties tried to get a judge to approve a plea deal that would have resolved tax and firearms cases in one fell swoop. That agreement stunningly fell apart in open court, with the parties unable to agree on terms and the judge ultimately withholding support over constitutional concerns.
“I’ve been through plea-bargain hearings like this before,” Wise joked, drawing laughter from the judge as everyone tried to figure out how to proceed.
“Deja vu,” Scarci replied.
This headline and article have been updated with additional reporting.
