Hunter Biden Heads to Court: What to Know

Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, is set to plead guilty Wednesday to two misdemeanor charges of failure to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018. He also is expected to avoid prosecution on a separate felony gun-possession charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user.

The deal with federal prosecutors, which heads off what would have been a politically explosive prosecution while Hunter Biden’s father campaigns for re-election, marks the culmination of a yearslong investigation by the U.S. attorney in Delaware, David Weiss. Weiss was appointed by former President Donald Trump and has remained in office under the Biden administration to see through the criminal inquiry into the president’s son.

Here’s what to watch for from Hunter Biden’s appearance at a federal courthouse at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Delaware.

Will the judge sanction the plea agreement? 

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika is widely expected to approve the plea deal. But given the high-profile nature of the case, legal observers said the judge, whom Trump nominated to the bench in 2017, is likely to ask a lot of questions about the agreement, in part to make sure the public knows she has fully vetted its terms. Republicans have decried the plan as a sweetheart deal for the Democratic president’s son. 

It is rare but not unheard of for a judge to press attorneys on how they came to the terms of a plea agreement. Noreika could also seek to know more about the government’s decision to forgo the gun prosecution in favor of diversion. Under such agreements, prosecutors generally forgo pursuit of a charge if defendants submit to other training or treatment programs.

“The judge will know the bright lights are on her, and she will want the public to know that she is not a rubber stamp,” said John Fishwick, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia during the Obama administration.

On Tuesday, the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee filed an unusual brief in the case highlighting recent testimony his panel heard from two IRS investigators alleging that political considerations may have infected the inquiry, and urged the court to consider rejecting the plea deal. “In the interest of full transparency and fairness for all citizens, it is critical for the Court to have this information,” the brief said.

Will the judge sentence Hunter Biden on Wednesday?

While the judge is expected to sign off on the plea agreement, Hunter Biden will likely have to return to court to be sentenced. Noreika will likely set a date for that sentencing hearing on Wednesday.

Weiss’s office has agreed to recommend a sentence of probation alone as part of the plea agreement, The Wall Street Journal has reported, though the judge has the final say. Hunter Biden faces a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison and a fine of $25,000 on each count. 

The pretrial diversion on the gun offense specifies that Hunter Biden must remain drug-free and agree to never own a firearm again. If he reneges, the charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail and a hefty fine. 

Will more information emerge about the yearslong investigation?

Probably. Prosecutors are expected to file what is known as a statement of facts, a part of a plea agreement that outlines the conduct to which a defendant is pleading guilty.

Weiss has said Hunter Biden received more than $1.5 million in annual income in both 2017 and 2018 and didn’t pay taxes on it, despite owing more than $100,000 each year. The Journal has reported he paid back about $1 million, while the charges say he failed to pay at least $200,000 on time. Prosecutors could explain that discrepancy.

The document also will likely explain more about the gun offense, details of which so far have been scarce in court documents, which say only that the younger Biden had a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver in October 2018, even though he was barred from owning a gun because he was using drugs.

It also could offer some details about what else prosecutors examined in their yearslong probe but didn’t charge. The investigation’s early stages looked at Biden’s foreign business dealings but had come more recently to focus on his taxes and his false claim on the gun form. 

Does this week mark an end to Hunter Biden’s legal troubles? 

Perhaps, but certainly not to his prominent place in the news. The plea agreement is a step toward resolving the legal issues swirling around Hunter Biden before his father’s re-election bid. But House Republicans are vowing to forge ahead with their own probes. They have complained that the agreement is too lenient, citing it as an example of what they say is the Biden administration’s “two-tiered justice system” and have demanded that Weiss appear before Congress to answer questions about whether he had full autonomy over the probe.

Several IRS employees have accused the Justice Department of slow-walking and stymying the investigation in various ways, something both Weiss and Attorney General Merrick Garland have denied.

On Monday, the Justice Department said Weiss would be available to testify before the House Judiciary Committee and offered possible dates in September and October. In a letter to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), the department stressed that Weiss should speak at a public hearing as opposed to the closed-door setting Republicans sought.

Write to Sadie Gurman at [email protected]