Hunter Biden’s legal team is none too happy about their sweetheart plea deal being blown up, and who can blame them? They thought they had this thing wrapped up after allegedly colluding with the DOJ to garner a wink-and-nod deal for global immunity, protecting the president’s son from future prosecution unrelated to his tax crimes while the investigation technically remained open.
But while the two sides expected their deal to be rubber-stamped, Judge Maryellen Noreika had other ideas. She pressed prosecutors on the plea, getting them to admit there was no precedent for it, and after two hours of her questioning exposing the disagreements between the two sides, things finally blew up.
According to a new report, that left Hunter Biden’s lawyers “fuming” in the aftermath.
Hours after the hearing, Biden’s team was still fuming, suggesting that Noreika seemed intent on not letting the plea agreement go forward after deliberately questioning lawyers on both sides about the terms of the deal.
Translation: Biden’s team was fuming over a judge actually doing her job and digging deep enough to find out the plea deal was likely unconstitutional. When you garner immunity, it’s typically somewhat narrow. For example, a defendant would garner immunity from future charges stemming only from the charges they are pleading guilty to.
Hunter Biden’s team and the DOJ tried to game the system, though, by giving broad immunity as part of the diversion agreement, which exists due to the gun charge (which normally requires the pursuit of prison time according to DOJ protocol).
Former Deputy Independent Counsel Sol Wisenberg described it this way.
Finally, and most importantly, a broad immunity provision (arguably covering every crime Hunter may have committed during the relevant time frame) was hidden in Paragraph 15 of the the Pre-Trial Diversion Agreement and this was done by the parties in order that the judge could not accept or reject the broad immunity portion of the overall deal. Totally unprecedented.
In short, the judge did her job. She looked at the plea deal, saw it was likely not even legal, and pressed each side until it became clear no one was on the same page. In doing so, she showed no bias, and it would have been unethical for her to do anything but what she did. To blindly accept that plea deal would have put a stain on the court.
Returning to the original report, Hunter Biden’s legal team is now personally attacking the judge.
One member of Biden’s team ruefully 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.
Others were quick to note that Noreika was appointed to the bench by former President Trump, and suggested they’d have to take politics into consideration going forward.
It’s incredibly ironic to see Judge Noreika attacked because things got chaotic when the only reason for the chaos was her exposing blatant corruption. She didn’t ask for Hunter Biden and the DOJ to collude on such a ridiculous plea deal. They did that of their own volition, and thankfully, she saw through the ruse immediately.
I can’t imagine that attacking the judge overseeing this case is going to work out well for Hunter Biden, but it’s a choice, I suppose. What happens next is unclear. It’s likely the two sides work out another plea deal because there’s no way that Hunter Biden’s legal team actually wants this to go to trial. The evidence is overwhelming. That is unless the DOJ plans to just scuttle its own prosecution. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
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