A preliminary hearing on Wednesday will determine the contours of the tax trial Hunter Biden faces in September. It is often a forum for discussions that could lead to a plea deal.
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Hunter Biden leaving court after being found guilty of lying on a federal gun application in June. His second trial, on tax charges, promises to be more complex.
Hunter Biden watched backstage in Chicago on Monday night as his father, President Biden, strode into the spotlight of the Democratic National Convention to bask in the appreciation of the party’s faithful and to gain a measure of closure after an unforgiving 2024.
On Wednesday, half a continent away, the president’s son was set to headline a different kind of event: a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles federal court before his trial on tax charges, the final act in a legal saga that has, remarkably, outlasted his father’s candidacy for re-election.
Until President Biden withdrew last month, allies of former President Donald J. Trump saw Hunter Biden’s trials as their best chance to push an unproven narrative of a “Biden crime family” to tie the father to the lurid sins of the son, particularly after their efforts to impeach the president faltered.
While Mr. Trump gripes about President Biden’s departure after years of preparing for a rematch of 2020, House Republicans have quickly pivoted to possible investigations of Vice President Kamala Harris, and for the most part have moved on from the Bidens.
But the legal system is not done with Hunter Biden, who was convicted two months ago of lying on a federal gun application in Delaware. He still faces charges of evading a tax assessment, failing to file and pay taxes, and filing a false or fraudulent tax return.
The Delaware case was a wrenching personal ordeal for the Biden family, with graphic testimony from Hunter Biden’s former wife and his daughter about his erratic, sordid and self-destructive behavior nearly a decade ago when he was addicted to crack. (Mr. Biden has been sober for several years, and has passed numerous drug tests issued by federal probation officials, according to court documents.)
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