As the actual hearing began, the judge was immediately skeptical of what the DOJ and Hunter Biden’s team had worked out. Hunter Biden’s lawyers have proclaimed for weeks that their acceptance of the plea deal brings an end to the five-year investigation into the president’s son, forgoing any further charges. Meanwhile, the DOJ has said publicly that the investigation into Hunter Biden is ongoing.
That led the judge to question whether she would be providing global immunity by allowing the deal to go through. Once she pressed the prosecution, things fell apart.
Plea deals are normally structured to have the defendant plead guilty to certain crimes in exchange for not being charged with other crimes. What other crimes were in the plea deal as being taken off the table? We don’t know the answer to that, but the judge seemed completely unimpressed with what the two sides had brought her. Further, when asked by the judge if such a deal had any precedent, the prosecutor was forced to admit that there was none.
As mentioned by Glenn Thrush’s reporting above, the deal was attempting to give Hunter Biden broad immunity into perpetuity from future crimes. That led the judge to ask whether the investigation was still ongoing, at which point the DOJ admitted it was. That put the two sides at a technical impasse, and one the judge wasn’t willing to overlook.
Zooming out, it appears that Hunter Biden’s team was intent on getting it on the record that by signing the plea, all investigations into Hunter Biden (and by virtue, possible future charges related to them) would be ended. Meanwhile, the DOJ seemed happy to let that happen until the judge threw up a roadblock.
That begs the question of why the DOJ didn’t speak up to fix the inconsistency prior to the hearing if this was really just a misunderstanding. As I noted above, Hunter Biden’s lead lawyer stated publicly multiple times that the plea deal meant all other charges would be off the table. Why didn’t the DOJ immediately move to clarify that point in the plea deal if that wasn’t their intention?
One would be forgiven for suspecting corruption, especially given the protection from oversight that is provided by technically keeping the Hunter Biden investigation open. It appears that the DOJ wanted to let Hunter Biden off the hook while also keeping their wall up between them and Congress. Thankfully, the judge saw through the ploy.
R&I ~ MJM
DGM