Update: Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to tax charges after deal falls through and judge admonishes Biden legal team.
Hunter Biden’s plea agreement with the Justice Department did not materialize after the judge was reluctant to let Biden off on the felony gun charge, and after she admonished the Biden legal team for trying to bury evidence through a scam on the court.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika crossed swords with Biden’s attorneys over what appears to be the Biden team misrepresenting themselves to the court clerk in order to convince the clerk to remove an item from the Biden file and make it go away.
Norieka also expressed skepticism about allowing Hunter Biden off on his illegal gun possession while he was on drugs.
Hunter Biden, 53, walked into the court in Delaware ready to enter a plea agreement in that would have seen the gun charge dropped in exchange for pleading guilty for misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to pay federal income taxes.
Meanwhile, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri submitted a brief to Noreika, which asked her to reconsider the Biden plea agreement, since a whistleblower has very recently testified under oath that the Department of Justice used political muscle to cut short its investigation into the Biden family legal problems.
“The Defendant appears to have benefited from political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation of the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Smith wrote in a court filing. “It is critical that the Court consider the Whistleblower Materials before determining whether to accept the Plea Agreement.”
After the brief was filed, a member of Biden’s legal firm called the court clerk and misrepresented herself as working on behalf of Smith’s law firm, and tried to have a clerk remove Smith’s brief from the court files, according to the clerk’s account.
The judge then ordered Biden’s legal team to explain themselves by 9 pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, or face sanctions.
The lead lawyer for Hunter Biden responded to the judge with a statement calling it “an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication.”
Read Rep. Smith’s brief to the court at this link.
Judge Noreika today asked the prosecution if there are any other criminal investigations that are pending relating to Hunter Biden, and the answer they gave was “yes.”
This story is developing and likely to be updated.
