Hunter Biden (C), son of US President Joe Biden, and his wife Melissa Cohen, leave court after his guilty plea in his trail on tax evasion in Los Angeles, California, on September 5, 2024. US President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, pleaded guilty September 5, 2024 to all nine tax charges he faced, without reaching a deal with prosecutors. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, has pleaded guilty to all nine charges in his federal tax case. The plea marked a new chapter in a saga that has been complicated by allegations of political favors and preferential treatment—and a wild change of heart on the day the trial was scheduled to begin.

About 120 potential jurors were waiting for jury selection to begin Thursday morning when Biden's attorney proposed an Alford plea. With an Alford plea—sometimes called a "best interests plea"—a defendant pleads guilty while maintaining innocence. An Alford plea must be accepted by the judge.

In Biden's case, prosecutors were taken aback by the offer, issuing objections. U.S. District Court Judge Mark C. Scarsi indicated that he would consider the matter and move forward with jury selection if he did not accept it. However, before Scarsi announced his decision, Biden's legal team made the surprising announcement that he would plead guilty to all charges.

In June of 2023, Hunter Biden was accused of tax and gun charges. Those charges were initially docketed as "Informations." When charges are brought on information, it usually means that the defendant has accepted the charges and is cooperating with the investigation—and that was the case here.

As part of an early plea deal signed by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2018 and has overseen the Biden investigation since that time, Biden agreed to plead guilty to two charges of failure to pay under section 7203 of the Tax Code. That section covers a wide variety of offenses, including failure to pay estimated tax or tax; failure to file a return; failure to keep records; and failure to supply information. The two charges in the plea deal specifically focused on Biden's failure to pay taxes for the 2017 and 2018 tax years.

The gun charge was treated as a diversion case in the original agreement. That means Biden would not have been technically pleading guilty to gun charges—criminal possession of a gun can be considered a felony—but would enter a program for nonviolent offenders with substance abuse problems.

(In June of 2024, Biden was found guilty on all three federal felony gun charges. Sentencing in that case is scheduled for November.)

The plea deal fell apart two months later when U.S. District Judge........

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