Going into this week the consensus of the many legal “experts” who have appeared on the various news networks and/or quoted in publications was that the DOJ’s plea deal with Hunter Biden would be approved by Federal Judge Maryellen Noreika, who was assigned to the case.
Well, not so quick sparky.
On Tuesday Judge Noreika threatened Hunter Biden’s legal team with sanctions for allegedly trying to trick the court into not including an amicus brief in the case from the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee.
On Wednesday, Judge Noreika, a Trump appointee, rejected Hunter Biden’s plea deal with the Justice Department on two misdemeanor tax charges because she had “concerns” about the constitutionality of a pre-trial diversion agreement that would allow him to avoid prison on a felony firearms possession charge.
The Justice Department had planned on recommending two years of probation for Hunter Biden as part of the negotiated plea deal, according to CNN. Conditions on Biden’s release would have required him to abstain from drinking alcohol or using illegal drugs and he could be randomly drug tested by court officials.
Conservatives have been urging the court to reject the agreement amid growing evidence of government interference in the probe.
The New York Times‘s Glenn Thrush also reported Wednesday that the unusual plea deal had “offered Hunter Biden broad immunity from prosecution in perpetuity.”
Thrush reported that Noreika was highly skeptical of the plea deal, “questioning why it had been filed under a provision that gave her no legal authority to reject it.”
“When she asked Leo Wise, a prosecutor, if there was any precedent for the kind of deal being proposed, he replied, ‘No, your honor,’” Thrush reported.
Noreika also questioned the discrepancy between Hunter Biden’s lawyers “repeatedly” casting the deal as the “final chapter of the five-year inquiry” into Hunter and the government’s position that the Biden investigation was “ongoing.”
Wise confirmed that the investigation was “ongoing” and said that if Biden’s team thought otherwise, “Then there’s no deal.”
Again from NYT's Glenn Thrush reporting from the courtroom: "From the start, the judge seemed highly skeptical of the unusual deal — which offered Hunter Biden broad immunity from prosecution in perpetuity, questioning why it had been filed under a provision that gave her no…
— Sol Wisenberg (@WisenbergSol) July 26, 2023
As a result of the plea deal falling apart, Hunter plead not guilty at the end of the hearing. If the plea deal had gone through it would have been the first time in U.S. history that the son of a sitting president pleaded guilty to a crime in federal court.
Judge Noreika asked both sides to file briefs explaining the legal structuring of the plea deal.
Prosecutors appeared to have thrown Hunter’s legal team a curve ball by acknowledging in the Delaware federal court that Biden is still the subject of an active investigation, according to Fox News.
Biden had been expected to plea guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes as part of a plea deal with the Justice Department that would have allowed the first son to avoid jail time with the approval of Noreika.
When Judge Noreika asked prosecutors whether the deal would include a possible Foreign Agents Registration Act charge, prosecutors said it would not.
The Justice Department said Biden earned more than $1.5 million annually in 2017 and 2018, and he did not pay income tax either year despite owing more than $100,000 in taxes both years.
The maximum penalty for each tax charge is 12 months in prison.
“Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties,” prosecutors said when announcing the plea deal last month.
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