Hunter Biden, the last surviving son of President Joe Biden, will be arraigned in federal court on Thursday on nine tax-related charges.
Hunter Biden will make his appearance in Los Angeles before U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.
The arraignment comes just over a month after Hunter Biden was indicted in the Central District of California on allegations that he failed to pay his taxes. Prosecutors alleged that Hunter Biden, who has spoken extensively about his addiction, “spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature” from 2016 through October 2020.
The indictment was brought by David Weiss, who was appointed as U.S. attorney for Delaware by Trump and who was named special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in August 2023. Weiss was appointed after a plea deal fell apart in July in a federal courthouse in Delaware after a judge raised questions about two separate plea deals: one involving tax charges, and the other involving a rarely-used gun charge that makes it unlawful for a “unlawful user” of “any controlled substance” to possess a firearm, a charge that could potentially be used against millions of Americans who both own a gun and use marijuana, for example. That charge, which federal authorities have previously used as a catch-all charge against domestic extremists, is facing court challenges.
On Wednesday, Hunter Biden made a surprise appearance at a circus-like hearing on the day that House Republicans formally recommended that the House hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress. Hunter Biden has said he would testify publicly, but House Republicans have demanded that he testify behind closed doors.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, called the request for a closed-door deposition “a tactic that the Republicans have repeatedly misused in their political crusade to selectively leak and mischaracterize what witnesses have said.”