Hunter Biden to Appear in Federal Court in Los Angeles

Hunter Biden is expected to make his first court appearance on federal tax charges on Thursday, six months after the collapse of a deal that would have ended the case.

Last month, a federal grand jury in California charged Mr. Biden, President Biden’s son, with evasion of a tax assessment, failure to file and pay taxes, and filing a false or fraudulent tax return. The charges, detailed in a scathing 56-page indictment, chronicled his years of drug abuse, debauchery, wild spending and flouting of federal tax laws.

The hearing in Los Angeles federal court is expected to be short and perfunctory, dealing with scheduling matters and paperwork deadlines. But in a somewhat unusual move, it will be overseen by Mark C. Scarsi, a Trump-appointed federal judge who is likely to preside over a trial, rather than a magistrate temporarily assigned to manage intake proceedings.

The case, coupled with a barrage of unsubstantiated charges that the president benefited financially from his son’s consulting work on behalf of businesses in Ukraine, China and Romania, is at the core of Republican efforts to impeach President Biden.