A California grand jury has indicted Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, on nine new federal criminal tax charges. These new charges are in addition to the two previous charges filed against him in a federal court in Delaware. This brings the total number of charges Biden is facing to 11, which includes three felonies and eight misdemeanors.
The indictment pertains to Biden’s activities with his company, Owasco, his actions as a board member for a Ukrainian industrial company named Burisma, and his dealings with a Chinese private equity fund. Biden has been alleged to have been part of a four-year scheme to evade payment of at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes from 2016 to 2019. The federal prosecutors have accused Biden of subverting his own company’s payroll and tax withholding process and taking false business deductions to evade taxes.
The charges leveled against Biden include six counts of violating 26 U.S.C. 7203 for failure to pay federal income tax from 2016 to 2019, one count of violating 26 U.S.C. 7201 for an attempt to evade paying income tax and two counts of filing a false and fraudulent income tax return, against 26 U.S.C. 7206.
US Attorney General had appointed Special Prosecutor David Weiss to oversee the investigation into Biden in August, which led to the indictment issued recently. Weiss was formerly the US Attorney for the District of Delaware and has been involved in investigations relating to Biden’s case since 2019.
The President Joe Biden and his family have also been under scrutiny in Congress, with the Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson announcing recently that the House will vote to formalize its impeachment inquiry into the president. This scrutiny is primarily due to allegations that President Joe Biden was involved in his son’s business dealings. There has yet to be any evidence supporting these allegations.
Several committees in the House have been running investigations into the Bidens, including the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. On December 7, the House Judiciary Committee released a report alleging that the DOJ and Weiss showed favoritism towards Hunter Biden during their investigations. The committee stated that their investigation is still not concluded, and they are still collecting evidence to ascertain whether they can draft articles of impeachment against President Biden for full House consideration.