It’s been a bad week to be Hunter Biden. During his first court appearance before a Delaware judge Wednesday morning, Joe Biden’s son pleaded “not guilty” as his previous deal fell apart. It is confirmed that Biden is still under federal investigation.
Hunter Biden was expected to cop a plea of guilty to misdemeanor charges for willfully failing to pay federal income tax in order to get him out of jail time for a felony gun charge. Unfortunately for Biden, the presiding judge didn’t sign off on the deal.
Judge Maryellen Noreika specifically took issue with the constitutionality of the deal and the “diversion clause” and immunity Biden would receive. The judge appears to be concerned as to whether or not Hunter Biden would be immune from any crimes discovered down the road under this particular immunity deal.
Despite the fact that federal prosecutors maintain that Biden is still under investigation and could, in fact, still be charged down the road, the judge and the prosecutors rejected the plea deal.
After some back and forth between Judge Noreika and Justice Department prosecutor Leo Wise regarding whether or not there was still an ongoing investigation, Wise admitted there was, but he could not disclose what it regarded. The judge then specifically asked if Wise could bring charges related to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. After Wise replied, “yes” the plea deal broke down.
The controversy of the Foreign Agents Registration Act stems from whether or not Hunter Biden should have registered as a foreign agent due to his numerous dealing with other countries. If he “willfully” didn’t, there are severe penalties, including five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.
At that point, despite the protestations of the defense, the deal broke down. Wise said: “Then there’s no deal.” The defense then relented as well as defense attorney Chris Clark said: “As far as I’m concerned, the plea deal is null and void.”
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Judge Noreika broke for a recess while the two sides continued to negotiate, but to no avail, so Biden entered his “not guilty” plea. The judge spoke directly to Biden at the end of the hearing: “Mr. Biden, I know you want to get this over with, and I’m sorry. But I need to get more information to do justice as I’m required to do.”
With the alleged sweetheart deal now in ashes, Mike Howell, the director of the Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation, said this: “Something is rotten in the state of Delaware, and the judge sniffed it out today. We’re thrilled her reasoning tracked with the arguments we laid out in our brief to the Court. Hunter Biden won’t be able to use this sweetheart plea deal as a get out of jail free card for any charges that may arise from the ongoing investigation into him. And that means that President Biden didn’t get a pass either.”
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., who has been aggressively pursuing the Bidens in this case, released a statement: “Today District Judge Noreika did the right thing by refusing to rubberstamp Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal. But let’s be clear: Hunter’s sweetheart plea deal belongs in the trash.”
It remains to be seen how Hunter Biden will wriggle out of this, but the latest developments will make it much harder. Thankfully there are still judges that adhere to the rule of law and are willing to follow it regardless of whose son is involved.
Hunter image By Center for Strategic & International Studies – Panel 3: Our Shared Opportunity: A Vision for Global Prosperity, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93062660