Hunter Biden will have an active January in court as the Department of Justice's two criminal cases against him begin to take shape.
President Joe Biden's son is scheduled to appear Jan. 11 at a federal courthouse in Los Angeles for an arraignment on nine tax charges, including three felonies. He is expected to enter a plea and agree to the terms of his pretrial release during the appearance.
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The arraignment relates to an indictment brought against Hunter Biden in December by special counsel David Weiss. In the indictment, Weiss alleged the first son failed to pay his taxes on more than $7 million of income during a four-year period beginning in 2017.
Weiss also brought charges against Hunter Biden in September over an unrelated incident from 2018. Weiss alleged in that indictment, which he brought in Delaware, that the first son lied on a federal gun form about his drug use so that he could purchase a gun. The special counsel also said Hunter Biden went on to retain possession of the gun illegally once he purchased it.
Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to the charges when he was arraigned for that indictment in October. He has since filed four separate motions to dismiss the case, and Weiss is expected to respond to those motions by mid-January.
Hunter Biden will then have an opportunity to respond to Weiss, and those filings will be due by Jan. 30.
Hunter Biden is aiming to get the gun case dismissed based on the argument that Weiss breached the separation of powers by allowing congressional Republicans to influence his prosecutorial decisions. He has also argued, among other reasons, that the case should be dismissed because the charges are allegedly a violation of the Second Amendment.
In addition to the two criminal cases, Hunter Biden has gone on legal offense in recent months after years of headlines swirling about his alleged wrongdoings. The first son initiated numerous civil suits this fall, including against former Trump aide Garrett Ziegler and the IRS.
Hunter Biden alleged that Ziegler, who has become the most prolific publisher of content from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, illegally accessed and manipulated his computer data. Hunter Biden and Ziegler have a hearing in that case scheduled for Feb. 22.
In the IRS suit, Hunter Biden alleged that the agency illegally disclosed his private tax information to the public by allowing two whistleblowers, Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley, to speak about Hunter Biden's alleged tax crimes to Congress and the media. Hunter Biden is awaiting a response from the IRS in that case, which the IRS must file by Jan. 16.
As a separate matter, congressional Republicans subpoenaed Hunter Biden to appear for a closed-door deposition as part of their impeachment inquiry into his father, but the first son defied the subpoena this month, saying he would instead only be willing to appear for a public hearing.
Republicans now say they plan to vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress, a rare process that could take weeks but that is expected to begin in January. The process typically involves lawmakers preparing a contempt resolution and then voting within a committee to bring the resolution to the House floor for a vote. The DOJ then has discretion over whether it wants to prosecute the target of the contempt vote.
In addition to his legal schedule, Hunter Biden could attempt to avoid contempt proceedings next month by instead engaging in negotiations with Republicans about appearing for a deposition.
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Hunter Biden's initial position, which he conveyed in a letter to Congress in November, was that appearing for a public hearing "would prevent selective leaks, manipulated transcripts, doctored exhibits, or one-sided press statements" about closed-door proceedings.
But the threat of contempt, a misdemeanor criminal offense, has historically pushed some witnesses to shift their stance and cooperate with Congress.