Hunter Biden’s surprising move to avoid a tax evasion trial could bring his legal battles one step closer to resolution — and ease a burden that threatened to haunt his father in his final days as president.
But that hasn’t made it any easier for Biden to watch.
In a plea agreement filed Thursday, Hunter Biden will plead guilty to tax evasion and other crimes while maintaining his innocence, and it preempts a trial in Los Angeles set to begin this week that will likely generate more bad headlines but has little chance of exonerating him.
It would allow President Joe Biden to avoid new scrutiny of his family just as he mounts a final effort to shore up his own achievements and the position of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I don’t think it’s been all that important before,” said Patrick Gaspard, president of the Center for American Progress and a longtime Democratic activist, “but now that Joe Biden is no longer the candidate, there’s even more of a disconnect between Hunter Biden and the notion of relevance in this election cycle.”
Few in the White House believe the plea will have any impact on Ms. Harris’ burgeoning campaign. Republicans in particular have tried to push for an investigation into Mr. Hunter for much of the past three years with little success. A congressional investigation failed and, even when Mr. Biden was on the campaign trail, polls consistently showed most Americans were uninterested.
But even as their political importance fades, Hunter’s legal troubles continue to pose a significant burden to the president.
Biden has long expressed frustration and concern about Hunter’s legal troubles and the increased spotlight his role as commander in chief has placed on his son. Those concerns intensified after a plea deal for Hunter on unrelated firearms charges collapsed last year and led to his guilty plea in June.
If the judge now accepts his plea on the tax-related charges, he could face additional prison time on top of the maximum 25-year prison sentence associated with the firearms charges.
“This petition is not just a clever legal move,” said Anthony Corey, a former Justice Department official in the Biden administration, pointing to elements of Hunter’s memoir that bolstered the government’s tax evasion case. “If the judge accepts it, it will save the younger Biden from being made a spectacle in the court of public opinion.”
Biden said in June he was “satisfied” that the trial had been fair and vowed not to pardon or commute Hunter’s sentence.
“I’m not going to do anything,” he said on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy. “I’m going to abide by the jury’s decision.”
On Thursday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would abide by his oath following Hunter’s latest plea.
“No,” she said in response to a question about whether Biden would reconsider. “Still no.”
Jean-Pierre did not say whether Biden knew in advance that Hunter was planning to change his charges. Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether she would consider a pardon if elected.
Biden has largely refrained from intervening in Hunter’s legal matters during his presidency, only expressing pride in his son’s efforts to overcome substance abuse and turn his life around after years of battling addiction, but supporters expect there will be cries of relief inside the Oval Office if the judge accepts the new motion.
Biden said he was angry that the federal investigation into his son had dragged on for five years and worried about the impact it would have on Hunter, an irritation that Democratic allies say is compounded by a widespread belief that some of Hunter’s crimes would not have been dealt with as harshly had his father not been president.
If the judge accepts the revised plea, the president could spend his final five months in office largely free from the investigations, trials and legal battles that have raged behind the scenes.
Biden has vowed to make his final term as president more productive than any of his in office, pushing aides to speed up implementation of his signature domestic gains while also stepping up efforts abroad to secure a ceasefire in the Middle East and shore up U.S. positions around the world.
Aides said the goals are intended to not only shore up Harris’ legacy but also to boost her campaign, whose success could determine how much of it remains intact.
Biden has been a vocal and unwavering supporter of Harris since deciding to abandon his reelection campaign in July, and while he has signaled his acceptance of the way his political career has ended, he continues to insist publicly and privately that he could have won if he had persevered.
But in one area, three people close to him said, Biden is entirely comfortable with the decision to step down. “It might make it easier for Hunter,” he told one of the people.