Hunter Biden’s plea deal involving tax and gun charges was put on hold Wednesday in a sudden twist that saw the judge presiding over the case questioning the parameters of the agreement reached with the Justice Department.
The federal judge refused to sign off on the guilty plea from President Biden’s son, because the terms of the deal may not be constitutional.
The deal that had been struck in June began to unravel near the start of the three-hour hearing, which the White House and allies of the Biden family had hoped would help close a painful chapter in Hunter Biden’s life that has cast doubt on the President’s 2024 re-election.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika asked questions that revealed the extent of a long-standing dispute between federal prosecutors and Biden’s lawyers over whether the agreement — in which the defendant would plead guilty to two tax misdemeanorsand probably avoid jail time — would protect him from the possibility of additional criminal charges.
She later questioned the structure of the deal itself, saying lawyers had crafted a two-step plea deal in which some key features may not be reviewable or enforceable by the court.
Biden, 53, made his initial federal court appearance in Wilmington, Del., where he was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay income taxes as part of a deal announced last month with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
While the deal could be salvaged in the coming weeks if prosecutors and defense lawyers can show Noreika it is on solid legal footing.
The probe was opened in 2018, during the administration of President Donald Trump. Since 2020, Republican politicians have repeatedly accused Hunter Biden of broad wrongdoing in his overseas business deals and predicted that the Biden administration would be reluctant to pursue the case.The terms of the proposed deal — negotiated with Weiss, a holdover from Trump’s administration — were quickly dismissed Tuesday by congressional Republicans, who vowed to continue investigating the Biden family.
Papers filed in federal court in Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday indicate that Hunter Biden has tentatively agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 and 2018.
A court document says that in both those years, Biden was a resident of Washington and received taxable income of more than $1.5 million, for which he owed more than $100,000 in income tax that he did not pay on time.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of probation for those counts, according to people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe elements of the case that are not yet public. Biden’s representatives have previously said that he eventually paid the IRS what he owed.
The second court filing is about the gun charge. In that case, the letter says, “the defendant has agreed to enter a Pretrial Diversion Agreement with respect to the firearm Information.”
Handling the gun charge as a diversion case means Biden would not technically be pleading guilty to that crime. Diversion is an option typically applied to nonviolent offenders with substance abuse problems.