Government

Hunter Biden Plea Deal Goes Up In Smoke

You had ONE JOB, Abbe Lowell!

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Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Two weeks ago, Hunter Biden’s plea deal appeared to be on life support. As of today, it’s well and truly dead, with the government moving to dismiss the charges against him in Delaware so that they may be brought in an appropriate venue.

You had ONE JOB, Abbe Lowell!

On July 26, what was supposed to be a routine plea hearing degenerated into chaos as it became clear that there was no meeting of the minds between the president’s son and prosecutors. In short, Biden believed that the plea would resolve all of the pending criminal investigations, and the government reserved its right to charge him with other violations. Judge Maryellen Noreika ordered the parties to go away for a month and hammer out their differences.

Clearly, that did not happen.

“Following additional negotiations after the hearing held on July 26, 2023, the parties are at an impasse and are not in agreement on either a plea agreement or a diversion agreement,” US Attorney David Weiss wrote. “Therefore, the Government believes the Court’s briefing order should be vacated.”

Under the terms of the now moribund plea deal, Biden agreed to waive venue for the tax charges, which occurred in DC or California, where Biden resides. But with the deal up in smoke, Weiss is now unable to charge him there, and is moving to dismiss the case and re-file the tax charges elsewhere.

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Toward that end, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced this afternoon that Weiss asked for and got a promotion to special counsel, empowering him to bring charges in any jurisdiction.  As multiple commentators have pointed out, this would appear to violate the mandate under 28 CFR § 600.3 that a special counsel “shall be selected from outside the United States Government.”

Nevertheless, Republicans have been demanding this for a year, and platforming dubious whistleblowers who say that the investigation was slow-walked from the jump because Weiss lacked that authority.

And yet, they’re still not happy.

“David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption. Weiss has already signed off on a sweetheart plea deal that was so awful and unfair that a federal judge rejected it,” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan carped through his spokesman. “We will continue to pursue facts brought to light by brave whistleblowers as well as Weiss’s inconsistent statements to Congress.”

House Oversight Chair James Comer howled that this was all part of the effort to cover up crimes by the president, which he has himself tried and failed for eight months to prove.

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This move by Attorney General Garland is part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of the House Oversight Committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals. The Justice Department’s misconduct and politicization in the Biden criminal investigation already allowed the statute of limitations to run with respect to egregious felonies committed by Hunter Biden. Justice Department officials refused to follow evidence that could have led to Joe Biden, tipped off the Biden transition team and Hunter Biden’s lawyers about planned interviews and searches, and attempted to sneakily place Hunter Biden on the path to a sweetheart plea deal.

Judge Noreika has ordered Hunter Biden to respond by Monday. And in the meantime, the law undergirding the gun charge for being a habitual drug user in possession of a firearm just got tossed by the Fifth Circuit.

US v. Biden [Docket via Court Listener]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

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