Hunter Biden (center) outside courthouse
Hunter Biden's plea deal on two misdemeanor tax charges fell apart yesterday during what was expected to be a routine hearing. Donald Watkins, a longtime Alabama attorney and criminal-defense expert, applauded Judge Maryellen Noreika's decision to hold off on accepting the terms of a revised plea deal.
The case is now on hold for at least a few weeks while both sides submit new materials to Judge Noreika, and she takes time to review them, according to a report from Axios. Biden entered a plea of not guilty after Noreika said she was not ready to accept the revised plea deal.
Watkins, publisher of the donaldwatkins.com Web site, has argued in recent weeks that Biden received favorable treatment from the U.S. Department of Justice, based on race, connections, and socioeconomic status. He also has argued that a defendant of color -- even a famous one, such as actor Wesley Snipes -- almost certainly would not get the kind of favorable treatment Hunter Biden received in a similar matter, also involving taxes. Watkins referred to Biden's treatment as a form of "white privilege." But Judge Noreika threw at least a temporary roadblock into the plea deal yesterday. Under the headline "Hunter Biden’s Crooked Plea Deal Blew Up in Court," Watkins writes:
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) tried to “fix” the Hunter Biden criminal case with a crooked plea deal. Today, this plea deal blew up in a Delaware federal court.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, the judge assigned to hear the plea deal in Hunter Biden’s case, rejected this stinking and highly suspect plea deal.
In disapproving the plea deal, Judge Noreika directed her focus on two aspects of the deal: (a) the DOJ’s grant of blanket immunity to Hunter Biden on future tax charges and (b) the DOJ's admission of Hunter Biden into the federal pretrial diversion program, even though he faced a gun-possession charge.
Under the law, that is a problem and Watkins provides an explanation of the issue:
In June, Hunter Biden was charged with two misdemeanor tax charges and a “firearms offense – namely, one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of, or addicted to, a controlled substance, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(3) and 924 (a)(2) (2018).”
Section 922 is a felony “weapons” offense, as defined in the annual DOJ statistical reports. The mandatory minimum sentence for this offense is 5 years.
Prosecutors attempted to help Hunter Biden avoid the 5-year minimum sentence by allowing him to enter into a pretrial diversion program.
According to the DOJ reports from 2001 to 2021, none of the 185,082 “weapons” cases prosecuted during this 20-year period was referred by DOJ to a pretrial diversion program. Hunter Biden is the first and only federal offender who has enjoyed this kind of preferential treatment in a firearms case.
Watkins points to other issues that could be problematic in the Hunter Biden criminal matter:
Hunter Biden also failed to declare millions of dollars in income from Ukrainian and Chinese businesses on his federal tax return. His conduct in this regard constitutes one or more felony offenses of income-tax evasion.
The DOJ tried to “fix” Hunter Biden’s tax-evasion crime by dragging out its criminal investigation into Biden's undeclared millions of dollars in income until the statute of limitations runs out on this offense.
Judge Noreika did not buy any aspect of the DOJ's crooked scheme to save Hunter Biden from going to prison. The plea deal is now dead.
Claims by the White House and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland that Hunter Biden has been treated like all drug-using, federal firearms-possessing, and tax-evading federal offenders are complete and utter "bullshit."
Hunter Biden’s criminal case was “fixed” because he is President Joe Biden’s son. America's crack cocaine-smoking, "dopehead" first son is a beneficiary of the most corrupt Department of Justice in modern history.
We thank God that Judge Maryellen Noreika is not a crook like Merrick Garland and the other Department of Justice officials who approved the Hunter Biden “sweetheart” deal.
What's next in the Hunter Biden matter? That's hard to say. According to Axios, the plea deal is not technically dead, but it is on hold:
Hunter Biden's legal team was stunned by what it expected would be a formality of a hearing that would allow the president's son to avoid prison time.
- The case now is on hold for at least a few weeks while both sides submit new materials to Judge Maryellen Noreika, and she takes time to review them.
- The delay came at the end of a raucous and tense hearing that featured two recesses as prosecutors and Biden's attorneys privately and publicly feuded over what they had agreed to.
- Hunter Biden's plea deal to avoid jail time included a guilty plea to two tax misdemeanors for failing to pay taxes and a diversionary agreement on a gun-related felony for owning a weapon while using drugs.
The first recess was prompted when Hunter testified that he believed the guilty plea agreement on tax misdemeanors was connected to the diversionary agreement on the separate gun felony, which the prosecutor said was incorrect.
After the judge gave the two sides time to iron out things, tensions flared as Biden lawyer Chris Clark snapped at Justice Department prosecutor Leo Wise that this wasn’t the deal — and they might as well “just rip it up.”
The second recess was prompted by Noreika's questions whether the diversionary agreement shielded Hunter Biden from future prosecution under other laws, including the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).
- Wise also told the court that there is an "ongoing investigation." Asked for more information by Noreika, Wise said he was "not in a position where I can say."
- Biden's legal team was shocked when Wise told the court that prosecutors believed they still could charge Biden with FARA violations.
- Clark said that was not his understanding, to which Wise replied: "then there's no deal."
The hearing almost concluded with a new court date a month away, before Clark pleaded for another recess to see if the sides could hash out their differences.
- As the two sides haggled, Biden's plea deal was orally amended to be more explicit in what Biden was immune from in the future — but it still could be tweaked in the coming weeks.
Biden's lawyers reached the initial deal with the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss. Sentencing on the charges is at the discretion of Noreika, also a Trump appointee.
