Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Sex, Drugs & Fast Cars: The Hunter Biden Tax Evasion Case Explained

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Hunter Biden, the troubled son of President Joe Biden, faces nine federal tax charges. Hunter Biden says his addiction to crack cocaine was largely to blame for not paying his taxes — and that the prosecution is political. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy talks with former Watergate Prosecutor Nick Ackerman about the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily true crime show.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. In the depths of my addiction, I was extremely irresponsible with my finances. Hunter Biden, the son of the President of the United States, in legal trouble with the feds for not paying his taxes. His attorneys say the prosecution is purely political. It's because he is the son of the president who's named Biden. I'm Anjanette Levy. Merry Christmas.

This is a special edition of Crime Fix, where we're looking at the federal tax case against Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden faces nine different federal charges related to either not paying his taxes, failing to file his taxes, evading paying his taxes, and paying his taxes late. One of the counts relates to a company he used to own. According to the indictment, from 2016 to 2020, Hunter Biden spent the money he owed Uncle Sam on drugs, escorts, and girlfriends, luxury hotels, exotic cars, clothes, and other personal items. He has spoken about his struggle with addiction in many

interviews. And that's why Hunter Biden says he didn't pay his taxes. He even wrote about it in his memoir, which is cited by prosecutors in the indictment. The special counsel also claims Biden only filed his taxes for the years 2017 and 2018 when he was forced to do so in 2020 because he had to produce financial records in two lawsuits he faced, one involving child support for a daughter he fathered. The indictment also says for the years Biden owed the money, he had the money to pay and just didn't. During the years in question, he brought in $7 million. Biden's lawyer, Abby Lowell, told MSNBC that he believed back in June of this year that this tax issue was going to be resolved with two misdemeanors after a five-year investigation

since the back taxes had been paid. Just five months later, without there being any new evidence after a five-year investigation, this is what he did. A 56-page, nine-count indictment. So according to Lowell, something changed between June and now to make this at least partially a felony case. Hunter Biden's back taxes were eventually paid, prosecutors say, by a third party. These tax charges are separate from the charges he faces for lying about his drug use on federal firearms forms. A plea agreement in that case fell apart earlier this year. Joining me to discuss Hunter Biden's indictment is somebody who knows a lot about the law. He is Nick Ackerman. He was a Watergate prosecutor. So, Nick, welcome to Crime Fix. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you for having me. What are your thoughts when you look through this indictment? Hunter Biden claims this is all political. It's a witch hunt, that type of thing. But he's accused of some very serious crimes of not paying taxes for several years when he should have been paying taxes and then filing false returns. So what are your thoughts when you look through it? Well, I did a lot of tax cases as a prosecutor. I put together the federal tax evasion case on Richard Nixon.

I did lots of prosecutions on tax evasion when I was an assistant U.S. attorney. And I've also since leaving the government have defended people on IRS criminal tax investigations. So I kind of my way around this area. And I think what really the big question here is, if Hunter Biden was just a regular citizen and not the son of the president of the United States, would he have been prosecuted for these crimes? And I say that because the way this situation normally works is the Department of Justice and the Tax Division actually oversees and approves all tax evasion and criminal tax indictments. And the reason for that is to keep a uniform practice across the entire country. And they've been doing this for years. The standards change a little bit over time. But the question here is, you know, somebody who was a drug addict at the time um somebody who was kind of off into the

nether nether world doing things normally those kinds of people are not prosecuted for tax crimes uh the big the big issue with tax crimes always is the criminal intent whether or not somebody had the specific intent actually violate the criminal tax laws and if you've got somebody who's piped up on drugs and is not all there all the time this is not usually the type of case that the Department of Justice brings. In fact, I mean, this case was brought by a special counsel who is not under the same guidelines and regulations and whatever that policy is now that the tax division in the Department of Justice is carrying through. So that's really the big issue here. There's no question he didn't pay

his taxes. There's no question he lied on some of his returns. He didn't report all the money. But it's a whole different issue on criminal tax as to whether or not this is the kind of case that would have been brought. For example, Roger Stone, Donald Trump's chief political advisor, who had been indicted and convicted on extremely serious crimes relating to covering up for Donald Trump on the Russia investigation. Trump later pardoned him, but Roger Stone didn't report some $2 million in income on his federal tax returns. And he was never criminally prosecuted and was permitted simply to repay the taxes that were due in Owing, which is something that Hunter Biden did. So without knowing more about what the specific policy is at this point in time and exactly what facts were before the special counsel, we really can't answer that question very well. So as we mentioned earlier, between 2015 and 2020, Hunter Biden earned about $7 million

from a variety of sources and his back taxes were eventually paid, prosecutors say, by a third party. So why is he facing these charges? If you pay the money, you can't necessarily get out of a criminal tax charge just by paying the money. That doesn't work. You've got to have something more that shows, one, if you're not going to prosecute the person, is it because there were some circumstances there that didn't make it worthy of prosecution, such as being a drug addict, such as having some other defect that caused him not to do what he was supposed to do, which might even wind up being a defense at trial in terms of whether or not he had the specific intent to actually commit those crimes.

So, I mean, that is really the issue. It's not a matter of not paying. Roger Stone didn't pay either. He didn't get charged for tax violations, criminal tax violations. So all of this is done under the Department of Justice in the tax division. Now, what exactly that particular policy is at this time? Certainly at various times, if someone was simply a drug addict, you don't see too many drug addicts being charged with criminal tax violations. So that's the real question here. If his name was

just Hunter Jones and wasn't related to the president of the United States, would anybody have bothered to charge him with a crime? So what do you think the something more is? Do you think there is the something more? Well, I don't know. We don't really know all the facts because a lot of it's in a grand jury. But normally, when you charge somebody with criminal tax violations, you're looking for what the Department of Justice refers to as badges of fraud. For example, setting up a phony company to take money and pass through to make it appear as a legitimate deduction is something that would be considered

a badge of fraud that would justify bringing a criminal tax case. In fact, that's exactly what Donald Trump and his siblings did in order to funnel money from their father to themselves without having to pay gift tax. So if that case had been investigated by the Department of Justice, there's no doubt in my mind that would have been charged because you had somebody taking overt measures to actually lie and set up fraudulent mechanisms to keep the government from learning about the fact that you were cheating on your taxes. Or any bank accounts. Those are the kinds of things that normally the government charges criminal tax for.

So what do you expect to happen with this case? Well, I think it's going to go to trial. Sounds like there's not going to be a plea. I assume that they're going to have a defense that relates to his specific intent, that he was a drug addict at the time, that if I was a defense lawyer, I'd be bringing in other people who would testify to the fact that there was a lot of other things in the course of his life that he just wasn't doing properly. And it wasn't just his taxes to try and make a defense that he didn't have the specific intent to just not pay the taxes or to cheat the IRS. So that would be the defense. And I don't know, maybe he's got a good case. I just don't know what all those facts are. We're not going to know everything here, either until there's a trial or until the special counsel has to issue his final report, which would come at the end of the trial or an end of a guilty plea. So we're not going to know all of these details and probably till much later in this case.

Well, Nick, thank you so much, Nick Ackerman, for joining us. I really appreciate it. We hope to talk to you about this again soon. Thank you. Hunter Biden will appear in court on January 11th to enter a plea to the charges. That's it for this special edition of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for joining us. We will see you back here tomorrow. Until then, have a great night.