Hunter Biden set to plead guilty in US federal tax case

President’s son is accused of avoiding at least $1.4m in taxes while enjoying lucrative income from business dealings.

Hunter Biden, son of United States President Joe Biden, will plead guilty to federal tax evasion, as his lawyers seek a speedy resolution to the election-year case.

At a federal courthouse in Los Angeles on Thursday, Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell told the judge he would change his plea from “not guilty”.

Instead, Biden is expected to offer an Alford plea, a kind of guilty plea in which the defendant accepts the court’s judgement but maintains their innocence.

“There is overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” Lowell told the judge. “This can be resolved today. It’s not a complicated issue.”

The change comes shortly before jury selection was scheduled to begin in the case. The judge overseeing the case, Mark Scarsi, has yet to accept the plea, and federal prosecutors in the case have indicated they oppose the Alford plea.

Biden faces felony and misdemeanor charges for failing to pay at least $1.4m in taxes at a time when he enjoyed a lucrative income from foreign business activities.

The indictment alleges he spent large sums “on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature”, while failing to pay taxes from 2016 through 2019.

The wayward behaviour of the president’s son, who has long struggled with substance abuse issues, has become a favourite source of criticism among right-wing lawmakers. Hunter Biden is also facing potential prison time after a jury convicted him of felony gun charges in a separate case in June.

A guilty plea in the tax case could help avoid a protracted trial, during which the messy details about Hunter Biden’s personal life and business dealings could come under heightened scrutiny.

His criminal trials are unfolding against the backdrop of the 2024 presidential election.

His father, President Biden, was previously the Democratic candidate for the presidency, before dropping out of the race in July amid concerns about his age. He has since been replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris atop the Democratic ticket.

Republicans have accused the younger Biden of using his father’s role in politics to negotiate lucrative business opportunities, including with the Ukrainian energy sector.

Hunter Biden, however, has denied leveraging his father’s position or engaging in illegal business dealings.

Right-wing lawmakers have also pushed unsubstantiated claims that the president’s son was part of a crime syndicate operated on behalf of his father.

Hunter had previously agreed to a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, in which he would have pled guilty to misdemeanour tax offences in exchange for avoiding prosecution in the gun case.

But that deal fell apart in July of last year after a judge questioned aspects of the agreement, and Biden submitted a not guilty plea to the tax-related charges.

The plea change announced on Thursday is likely a tactic to help Biden avoid a lengthy public trial.

It could also pave the way for negotiations for more lenient sentencing, a common practice in the US criminal justice system. But prosecutors representing the US Justice Department said they were not informed of the surprise plea decision in advance.

“It’s not clear to us what they are trying to do,” one prosecutor told the judge.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies