Read the indictment against Hunter Biden in full

Justice Department prosecutors filed a nine-count indictment against President Joe Biden’s son on Thursday, accusing him of skipping out on more than $1.4m in taxes while enjoying a lavish lifestyle of ‘drugs, escorts and girlfriends’

Hunter Biden has been hit with a string of new criminal charges accusing him of skipping out on more than $1.4m in taxes while enjoying a lavish lifestyle of “exotic cars”, “drugs, escorts and girlfriends”.

Justice Department prosecutors filed the new nine-count indictment against President Joe Biden’s son in California on 7 December, charging him with two counts of filing a false return, one count of tax evasion, four counts of failing to pay taxes and two counts of failure to file taxes.

The charges mark the culmination of a long-running investigation by David Weiss – a Donald Trump-appointed judge and the special counsel selected to preside over the case.

Prosecutors say Hunter made millions of dollars in income between the years 2016 and 2020 – all the while engaging in a years-long tax evasion scheme.

According to the indictment, Hunter “engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020”.

Instead of paying his tax bills, the president’s son allegedly spent millions of dollars funding his “extravagant lifestyle” including spending money on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature”.

“In short, everything but his taxes,” the indictment states.

This marks just the latest legal trouble for the president’s son after he was hit with three felony gun charges in September over a gun purchase in 2018 when he was in the throes of drug addiction.

Those charges came after he reached a plea deal with the Justice Department back in June before the terms of the agreement fell apart before a judge.

Under the terms of the deal, Hunter had agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanours for failing to pay his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018. In exchange, prosecutors would not charge with him a gun possession violation.

The judge refused to accept the scope of the plea deal and the agreement – which was slammed as a “sweetheart deal” by Biden critics – fell apart. This then paved the way for first the three-count indictment on gun charges and, now secondly, the nine-count indictment on tax charges.

Read the new, second indictment against Hunter Biden in full here: