Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to federal tax charges during a hearing at a federal courthouse in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Last month, the first son was indicted in California on nine criminal charges as part of a Department of Justice investigation into his taxes.
Those charges include three felony counts for alleged tax evasion and filing a false return and six misdemeanor charges for alleged failure to pay taxes between 2016 and 2019.
“Hunter Biden engaged in a four-year scheme in which he chose not to pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019 and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns,” prosecutors wrote in a press release last month.
If Biden were convicted on all charges, he would face up to 17 years in prison.
District judge Maryellen Noreika had previously rejected a plea deal that would have seen the younger Biden plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax violations and submit to a pre-trial diversion agreement to avoid a felony gun charge in exchange for broad immunity from future prosecution. Noreika then dismissed the two outstanding misdemeanor tax charges at the request of federal prosecutors, who hoped to pursue new charges.
In September, special counsel David Weiss indicted Biden on three firearms charges, alleging that Hunter lied on a federal form while purchasing a gun five years ago.
That four-page indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for Delaware, argues that Hunter “knowingly made a false and fictitious written statement, intended and likely to deceive” a dealer in his effort to acquire a Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018.
The indictment accused Hunter of falsely certifying that he was “not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance,” when he filled out a federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) form.
Biden wrote in his memoir that he was smoking crack nearly every 15 minutes around the time he purchased the gun.
Biden previously pleaded not guilty to those charges.
The new charges come after whistleblowers raised concerns that the investigation into the younger Biden had been plagued by “preferential treatment and politics.”
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley previously testified that, before Weiss was appointed as special counsel, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney for D.C. had the final say over whether charges would be brought against Hunter Biden. Shapley claimed the Biden appointee was the one who made the call not to charge the younger Biden with a felony previously.
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees passed resolutions on Wednesday to hold the younger Biden in contempt of Congress after he refused to appear for a scheduled deposition in December, defying a subpoena.
Hunter appeared outside the Capitol on December 13, the date of his scheduled deposition, and told reporters he would only testify before House Oversight if he could do so in a public hearing. He had been set to give a closed-door testimony.
The full House is expected to consider the contempt resolutions as early as next week. If the House votes to hold him in contempt, the Justice Department will decide whether to prosecute.