WASHINGTON (Bernama-AA) — United States (US) President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, pleaded not guilty to nine tax charges in federal court in Los Angeles, California on Thursday (local time), and is expected to go on trial in June, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported.
Prosecutors alleged in a 56-page indictment filed last month that Hunter Biden made around US$7 million between 2016 to 2020, as he spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills.
In a statement from the special counsel David Weiss’s office as the charges were filed, said Biden had engaged in a four-year scheme in which he chose not to pay at least US$1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, and evaded the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns.
Biden’s indictment came in the wake of a failed plea deal involving tax and gun charges that would have spared him any jail time, but instead, he was charged with a federal firearms count in the state of Delaware alleging that he broke laws in 2018, pertaining to possessing a firearm while using illegal drugs.
Meanwhile, the high-profile case comes amid the president’s son publicly defying a subpoena last month to testify before Congress before a closed-door House committee, but instead, he held a press conference in front of the US Capitol building.
“My father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practising lawyer, not as a board member of (Ukrainian natural gas firm) Burisma (Holdings), not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist,“ he told reporters in the press conference, as he referred to his drug problems.
He said that in the depths of his addiction, he was extremely irresponsible with his finances, but to suggest that this is grounds for an impeachment inquiry is absurd and shameless.
Biden added that there is no evidence to support the allegations that his father was financially involved in his business because it did not happen. –Bernama-AA
