Hunter Biden’s plea avoids a trial, and further pain for his father

Hunter Biden’s surprise bid to avert a tax evasion trial could bring his legal saga one step closer to resolution — and ease a burden that threatened to trail his father through the final days of the presidency.

But that hasn’t made it any easier for the elder Biden to watch.

In a plea offer submitted Thursday, Hunter Biden would accept responsibility for tax evasion and other crimes even as he maintains his innocence. It would preempt a Los Angeles trial scheduled to start this week that would likely generate more unflattering headlines, with little promise of vindication.

For President Joe Biden, it would head off renewed scrutiny of his family just as he embarks on a final stretch designed to bolster his legacy and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I don’t think it ever mattered that much,” said Patrick Gaspard, president of the Center for American Progress and a longtime Democratic operative. “But now that Joe Biden is not the candidate, there’s even more distance between Hunter Biden and any notion of relevancy in this election cycle.”

Within the White House, few believe the plea will have any impact on Harris' surging campaign, especially after Republicans tried for much of the last three years to advance investigations into Hunter with little success. The congressional probes have fizzled out, and even when Biden was in the race, polling consistently suggested most Americans didn't care.

Yet even as the political significance has faded, Hunter’s legal issues have continued to take a heavy toll on the president.

Biden has long expressed frustration and worry over Hunter’s legal troubles and the impact that his role as commander-in-chief has played in intensifying the spotlight on his son. Those fears grew after a plea deal over separate gun charges against Hunter collapsed last year, resulting in a guilty verdict in June.

If a judge now accepts his plea on the tax charges, he could face additional prison time, on top of the 25-year maximum linked to the gun charges.

"This plea is not just a smart legal move," said Anthony Coley, a former Biden Justice Department official, who pointed to elements of Hunter's own memoir that he said had bolstered the government's tax evasion case. "If the judge accepts it, it would spare the younger Biden from a spectacle in the court of public opinion."

Biden pledged in June not to pardon or commute Hunter’s convictions, saying he was “satisfied” that the trial had been fair.

“I am not going to do anything,” he said on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy. “I will abide by the jury’s decision.”

On Thursday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would keep his vow in the wake of Hunter's latest plea.

“No,” she said in response to a question about whether Biden was reconsidering at all. “It’s still no.”

Jean-Pierre would not say if Biden knew beforehand that Hunter planned to change his plea. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether she would consider a pardon if elected.

Biden during his presidency has largely refrained from weighing in on Hunter's legal troubles beyond expressing pride in his son's recovery from substance abuse and efforts to rebuild his life after years of addiction struggles. But should a judge accept the new plea, allies predicted the development would prompt relief within the Oval Office.

Biden was irked by the length of the five-year federal investigation into his son and expressed concern about the impact it would have on Hunter. Compounding the frustration, Democratic allies said, was the widely held belief that some of Hunter's crimes would not have been treated nearly as harshly if his father wasn’t president.

Should the judge accept the changed plea, it could offer the president a final five months in office largely clear of the investigations, court dates and legal wrangling that played out in the background of his administration.

Biden has vowed to make his final stretch in office as productive as any other period of his term, pushing aides to speed up implementation of his signature domestic accomplishments and intensifying efforts abroad to secure a cease-fire in the Middle East and reinforce America's standing across the globe.

Those goals aim not only to strengthen his legacy, aides said, but to boost a Harris campaign whose success could determine how much of that legacy remains intact.

Since Biden decided to abandon his reelection campaign in July, he has continued to insist in public and private that he could have won if he chose to persevere, even as he's offered Harris vocal and unfailing support and expressed a sense of acceptance for the way his political career will end.

But in one area, three people close to him say, Biden is unequivocally at peace with his decision to step away. As he put it to one of them: "Maybe it will make it easier for Hunter."