The Martyring Of Hunter Biden Is A Distraction
The most important thing to remember isn't the conviction or addition, it's the cover up.
U.S. Federal District Judge Maryellen Noreika left Hunter Biden's legal team "fuming" on Wednesday, according to a new report.
When the first son walked into a federal courthouse in Delaware on Wednesday, his lawyers fully expected Noreika to approve the sweetheart plea deal, an agreement between U.S. Attorney David Weiss and Biden. As part of the agreement, Biden would plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes and receive diversion for a felony gun charge.
Instead, Biden left court having pleaded not guilty — for now.
The deal collapsed under intense scrutiny by Noreika, who raised numerous legal questions from the "unusual" nature of the diversion agreement to the broad immunity being offered to Biden to the very constitutionality of the agreement as it was written.
Hours after the explosive court hearing, Biden's lawyers were "still fuming," according to Axios, because "Noreika seemed intent on not letting the plea agreement go forward after deliberately questioning lawyers on both sides about the terms of the deal." That conduct, while having upset Biden's team, sounds to most Americans like a thorough judge who possess high character and an instinct for justice.
One member of the Biden legal team was so upset that they "compared Noreika to Judge Lance Ito, who presided over the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995 and was widely criticized for letting it become chaotic," Axios reported.
Other members of the team seized on the fact that Noreika was appointed by former President Donald Trump. They argued Noreika had become blind to politics, though there is no evidence to back that idea.
The truth is that, as Noreika herself discerned, prosecutors and Biden's legal team wanted her to "rubber stamp" the agreement without critically analyzing it. She refused to do so.
Still, for someone whom Biden's lawyers are angry with, Noreika appeared apologetic to Biden over the fact that the matter was not concluded on the timeline that he was promised.
"Mr. Biden, I know you want to get this over with, and I'm sorry, but I do want to make sure that I am careful in my view of this," she told him.
Both sides will return to court sometime in the next several weeks after clarifying the ambiguities in the plea agreement and the legal problems that Noreika identified within it.
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Legal scholar Jonathan Turley explained Wednesday how U.S. Federal District Judge Maryellen Noreika identified the potential criminal charge against Hunter Biden the White House "most fears."
As Noreika quizzed prosecutors about the details of the plea agreement, she forced the government to admit the investigation into Biden remains ongoing.
Not only is the investigation ongoing, but prosecutors told Noreika that Hunter Biden could be charged in the future for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act on grounds that he allegedly failed to disclose his work lobbying on behalf of foreign interests.
Biden's lawyers thought the plea agreement shielded their client from such future charges, but prosecutors said it did not. Without a "meeting of the minds" (i.e., agreement from both sides), there could not be a deal, Noreika said.
The revelation, Turley said on Fox News, presents the White House with the problem the administration "most fears."
"This is a big problem. This was all supposed to be scripted. It was all supposed to be easy. And now it is off script, and it is anything but easy," Turley said on Fox News.
"The judge just raised the one charge that the White House most fears, which is the chance that Hunter was a foreign agent," he explained.
If Hunter Biden acted as a foreign agent under the definition set forth by FARA, that generates new and more problematic questions — potentially leading to answers that entangle President Joe Biden, Turley explained.
"The question is foreign agent for who and for what purpose? The president was that purpose. If you're influence peddling, it's influence over the president," he said.
"So if you go for FARA, it's going to bring all of this stuff in," he continued. "All of that can get boot-strapped into a FARA issue. The whole purpose of this deal is collapsing as we're watching it. And it's taken Washington by utter surprise. I was on the hill talking with members, and everyone was floored."
Weiss' office has maintained, since first announcing the plea deal, that its investigation remains ongoing.
However, prosecutors have not said what they are investigating. Wednesday's admission in court was in the first glimpse of what may still come in the future.
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Hunter Biden's sweetheart plea deal collapsed on Wednesday, and the first son pleaded not guilty — at least for now.
Biden walked into a federal courthouse in Delaware on Wednesday prepared to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes and to accept a pretrial diversion deal for a felony federal gun charge. The agreement would have allowed Biden to avoid jail time and prosecution for the gun charge.
But court proceedings hit a snag when U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika began asking questions about the diversion agreement.
Under interrogation from Noreika, prosecutors admitted the investigation into Biden is ongoing and may result in new criminal charges, including foreign lobbying charges. The disclosure upset Biden's attorneys, who believed the plea deal gave Biden immunity from future criminal charges.
"As far as I’m concerned, the plea agreement is null and void," Chris Clark, Biden's lead attorney, said in court.
After several recesses, prosecutors and Biden's attorneys agreed that he would receive broad immunity for all tax, drug, and gun crimes potentially committed from 2014 to 2019, not blanket immunity for any and all future potential prosecution. But Noreika's concerns about gun charge and diversion agreement persisted.
Specifically, she quizzed prosecutors on the "unusual" nature of the agreement, including whether the DOJ regularly offers such agreements for felony gun charges, and why it included "non-standard terms," such as "broad immunity," CNN reported.
Noreika even questioned the constitutionality of the diversion agreement, suggesting the deal put her — a member of the judicial branch — in the position of the executive branch, which is responsible for criminal prosecution.
"I have concerns about the constitutionality of this provision so I have concerns about the constitutionality of this agreement," she said, according to the Washington Post.
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On that matter, the diversion program allows Biden to escape prosecution for the gun charge only if he abides by its terms. But what happens if he violates them? Apparently, the agreement was written in such a way that it would be up to the judge to determine whether a legitimate breach had occurred. The agreement, then, makes Noreika the "gatekeeper" of potential future prosecution, NBC News reporter Tom Winters explained, which is not her constitutional duty.
According to the New York Times, Noreika "angrily" repeated several times that she felt prosecutors and Biden's attorneys were using her to "rubber stamp" an agreement that she has serious "concerns" about.
In the end, Noreika said she is neither accepting nor rejecting the agreement, resulting in Biden's "not guilty" plea, and she gave both sides several weeks to resolve ambiguities in the deal.
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