When news broke in June that after five years of investigation, Hunter Biden was offered a plea deal by the Department of Justice on misdemeanor charges for tax crimes — not felonies — in addition to a cushy diversion program for illegally obtaining a firearm, outrage ensued, and rightful claims of prosecutorial misconduct were loudly alleged.
Fast forward to this week, and Hunter planned to have a quick, routine day in federal court. He was to enter the room, respect the judge and the process, enter his guilty pleas and then walk away.
"As he entered the courtroom, Mr. Biden drew a deep breath and plunged forward to greet the prosecutors who investigated him for five years with handshakes and a smile," The New York Times reported about the scene.
But after a few basic questions from U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika, the plea deal started to fall apart, and it was quickly revealed that the process leading up to the moment was even more corrupt than we already knew.
DOJ "prosecutors" wrote the plea deal in a way that buried the diversion program and future prosecution of Hunter Biden for other crimes — including violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act.
"What happened is they got caught. They got caught trying to run roughshod over a court, and the reason they got caught is because they do that in 99 percent of their cases, they're able to push through whatever plea agreement because they have so much unbridled power," former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman said about the situation.
"Joe Biden's DOJ prosecutors turned out to be Hunter Biden's defense team. The lawyers that are supposed to be on opposite sides are on the same side. The lawyers in that case all worked together to hide a blanket immunity agreement to protect Hunter Biden from the judge, and they got caught and you saw that play out, and that's why this plea agreement fell apart. It's absolutely stunning," former federal prosecutor John Ratcliffe said. "The Biden White House desperately wanted this plea agreement to go through…you're one witness away from someone putting Joe Biden squarely in the middle of Hunter Biden's business dealings."
Prosecutors admitted the plea deal being offered to Hunter was abnormal. In fact, DOJ prosecutor Leo Wise admitted during the hearing he had never seen anything like it before. Judge Noreika described it as "unusual," "non-standard" and containing "broad immunity." Agreed. These descriptions corroborate testimony recently given by IRS whistleblowers on Capitol Hill that the case was grossly mishandled and given special treatment.
Prosecutors panicked when they got caught in court and claimed that Hunter Biden is under continuing investigation for FARA violations. This admission, whether true or not, torpedoed the hearing, and Hunter Biden ultimately walked away after entering a not-guilty plea and is out on pre-trial release.
Only in a corrupt Biden administration, where the feds are going to great lengths to protect President Joe Biden from criminal charges, do you get to negotiate your own plea deal with prosecutors as partners. The collusion brings the special treatment of Hunter Biden, who made millions of dollars overseas without properly registering as a foreign agent, to a whole new level.
As the deal fell apart, the White House also panicked. It wasn't in the plan that Hunter Biden would need a pardon. DOJ was supposed to take a guilty plea on misdemeanor charges and make the whole thing quietly go away. And while White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said definitively this week that President Biden would not pardon his son, Joe Biden owes Hunter a great deal and no doubt plans to keep him out of federal prison.
After all, according to the Department of Justice, "The penalty for a willful violation of FARA is imprisonment for not more than five years, a fine of up to $250,000, or both. Certain violations are considered misdemeanors, with penalties of imprisonment of not more than six months, a fine of not more than $5,000, or both."