(NewsNation) — Hunter Biden pleaded guilty because his defense was “eviscerated” and to avoid further harm to his family, attorney Mark Geragos told “The Hill on NewsNation.”
The president’s son was accused of not paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while earning millions from foreign business entities between 2016 and 2019.
On Thursday, he pleaded guilty to nine federal tax counts despite previously pleading not guilty and attempting to secure a special plea that would maintain his innocence. His attorneys previously argued he didn’t act “willfully” or with intent to break the law, citing struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
Geragos, a Los Angeles-based criminal defense lawyer, said the decision came after the special counsel effectively stripped Hunter Biden of his defenses.
He said the special counsel disallowed the fact that Hunter Biden had paid his taxes and eliminated the defense’s expert on addiction, both of which the judge allowed.
“We were not allowed to talk about the death of his mother and his sister at a very young age, or the death of his brother, as contributing or being causal to the addiction,” Geragos explained.
“Once you eliminate that, those traumas, then he had a very tough, tough decision to make: Do I go forward with this case, put my family through all of the salacious details of my addiction? … Or do I just plead open and hope that the judge realizes that was a dark, dark period in my life?” he added.
“Hunter put his family first today, and it was a brave and loving thing for him to do,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Los Angeles.
Geragos explained that Lowell had tried the case in Delaware, which was “by all accounts … traumatic” for everyone involved.
The attorney said trying the case in California and pleading guilty was a way to avoid another invasive, “horrible parade” of a trial.
Geragos also questioned the trial’s point in the first place.
“Why in the world would somebody whose paid all their taxes, filed all their returns, had demonstrable addiction issues at the time … why, when President Biden has already said he’s not going to run, what was the purpose of taking this case to trial? Why did we spend, as taxpayers, over $4 million for a case where no harm, no foul?” he said.
Hunter Biden issued a written statement about his decision to plead guilty, saying, “I will not subject my family to more pain, more invasions of privacy and needless embarrassment. For all I have put them through over the years, I can spare them this.”
A plea deal and diversion agreement that would have prevented both his federal tax and gun trials collapsed in July 2023 under a judge’s questioning. Shortly after, a special counsel indicted Hunter Biden, splitting the deal into the Delaware gun charges and the California tax case.
Sentencing in the Delaware conviction is set for Nov. 13. Biden could face up to 25 years in prison. He could get up to 17 years and a fine of up to $1.3 million on the tax charges at a scheduled Dec. 16 sentencing.
The Associated Press and NewsNation’s Nancy Loo and Courtney Han contributed to this report.
