A look at the latest federal charges filed against Hunter Biden

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Hunter Biden has been indicted on nine tax-related charges, including three felony counts, according to documents filed yesterday in a federal court in Los Angeles.

  According to federal prosecutors, the president's 53-year-old son — quote — "engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in taxes that he owed from 2016 through 2019."

  Prosecutors allege that he instead spent hundreds of thousand dollars on drugs, escorts, and exotic cars.

  NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is with us now.

  So, Ryan, the charges are spelled out in a 56-page court document. It's a speaking indictment, in that it is extraordinarily detailed. What is the special counsel in this case, David Weiss, what is he alleging?

• Ryan Lucas, Justice Correspondent, NPR:

  Well, he's alleging, as you said, that this was a four-year scheme that Hunter Biden followed in order to not pay some $1.4 million in taxes.

  He says that Hunter Biden, in essence, cheated his own kind of payroll company and its payroll and tax withholding process in order to not pay these taxes. It says, instead, he was using this money to pay for various women, to pay for escorts and girlfriends, to pay for luxury cars.

  There's one instance that's documented in the indictment in which it says that he spent $1,500 on an exotic strip club. There's another instance in which he paid $11,500 on an escort for two nights. So, the document, as you said, is a speaking document. It provides a lot of detail, a lot of it sordid and salacious, into what Hunter Biden was spending his money on over this four-year period, instead of paying his taxes.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And this case was on the verge of being resolved back in July, when that plea deal fell apart. And what would have been two misdemeanors are now, what, six misdemeanors and three felony counts.

  It raises the question of why the DOJ would have been willing to offer a plea deal in the first place.

• Ryan Lucas:

  This is something that special counsel David Weiss was willing to resolve only five months ago in a plea deal in Delaware. It would have resolved two misdemeanor counts of tax charges, as well as a gun count.

  And, instead, what we have actually is three gun charges in Delaware that the special counsel brought earlier this summer. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to those. And what Abbe Lowell said last night in response to these new charges is, look, there's — this is all material that the special counsel has had for five years, five years that he has been investigating Hunter Biden. There's no new evidence, and yet now we have nine new tax charges.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And we should say this indictment does not allege any connection to or involvement by President Joe Biden.

  You mentioned Hunter Biden's attorney, Abbe Lowell. He also said in a statement: "If Hunter's last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware in now California would not have been brought."

  Is he right? What would an average citizen face charges like this, especially after, as Hunter Biden did, paid back the taxes?

• Ryan Lucas:

  Well, there certainly are other avenues for resolving cases like this. There are civil procedures that many cases like this are resolved in such a manner.

  This is up to the Justice Department on how it wants to resolve these cases. And what prosecutors can point to is the fact that there were four years in which Hunter Biden was supposed to file taxes, in which he had money, it says, in order to pay these taxes. And instead of doing so, it says he was spending them on personal items, personal expenses that ultimately was money that should have been going to the U.S. government.

• Geoff Bennett:

  What consequences does Hunter Biden face, potentially, and do you have a sense of when this case would start?

• Ryan Lucas:

  Well, the Justice Department says that he faces up to 17 years in prison if convicted on all these counts.

  There's no indication at this point in time when all of this will get under way. His gun case in Delaware is set for a hearing this month. Lowell has said that he intends to file motions to dismiss that case. They are fighting that case. And there's certainly every indication at this point in time that Hunter Biden intends to fight these tax charges as well.

• Geoff Bennett:

  NPR's Ryan Lucas.

  Ryan, thank you for joining us this evening. We appreciate it.

• Ryan Lucas:

  Thank you.