Hunter Biden’s attorneys lobbed a serious threat to get negotiations going on a plea deal when the legal scrutiny of the president’s son was becoming more intense. A lengthy article in Politico by Betsy Woodruff details the behind-the-scenes maneuvers that Hunter’s lawyers and the Justice Department made in crafting the infamous plea deal, where the younger Biden would have essentially evaded jail time for tax and gun charges that were blessedly shot down by a judge who hadn’t lost the plot. The gun charge stemmed from when the crack-cocaine-addicted Hunter bought a handgun in 2018. It was disposed of by his then-girlfriend, Hallie Biden. Lying on a 4473 form while purchasing a firearm carries a jail sentence of up to 15 years
Hunter Biden’s lawyers were shrewd in getting the Justice Department’s attention regarding how to move past this legal drama. They claimed the leaked details behind the gun fiasco involving the president’s son was an “illegal” act that could have Second Amendment considerations. Second, they threatened to put Joe Biden on the stand, thereby creating a potential constitutional crisis, as he would be a defense witness in a case brought on by his own DOJ. The piece includes how the witness testimony from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Zeigler, where they alleged pervasive DOJ interference in their probes involving Hunter, might have derailed this sweetheart plea deal (via Politico):
It was Halloween of 2022, and Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Chris Clark, didn’t sound happy. Just three weeks earlier, news had leaked that federal agents believed they had enough evidence to charge his client with illegally buying a gun as a drug user.
The leak was “illegal,” the lawyer wrote to the U.S. attorney overseeing the probe. The prosecution, he argued, would be seen as purely political, and it might even violate the Second Amendment.
Then he issued a warning: If the Justice Department charged the president’s son, his lawyers would put the president on the witness stand.
[…]
… Clark argued the same political pressure meant bringing gun charges would be scandalous. On Oct. 31, 2022, he wrote directly to David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware who was overseeing the probe. Weiss had been appointed by Trump and had been allowed to stay on during Joe Biden’s administration to continue the investigation — and Attorney General Merrick Garland had pledged to give Weiss full independence.
But Clark argued in his letter to Weiss that charging Hunter Biden with a gun crime would torpedo public trust in the Justice Department.
Biden, Clark continued, didn’t use the allegedly purchased gun to commit a crime, didn’t buy another one and didn’t have any prior criminal record. No drug user had ever been charged with a felony in Delaware for buying a gun under those same circumstances, he wrote. Prosecutors, he alleged, were weighing gun charges for one reason: “the relentless political pressure from the opponents of the current President of the United States.”
[…]
Clark then laid out what could have been seen as a promise, a warning, or just some very zealous lawyering: He said Joe Biden would undoubtedly be a witness at trial because of leaks about the probe. He wrote that just a few weeks before sending his letter, there had been two back-to-back leaks related to Hunter Biden and the gun issue. First, someone told The Washington Post that investigators thought Biden deserved tax and gun charges. Then a few days later, The Daily Mail reported on a voicemail Joe Biden left for his son in the window of time when he allegedly owned the gun. Surely the back-to-back leaks were part of a coordinated campaign to push the Justice Department to charge his client with crimes. And, Clark said, the leaks prompted the president to address his son’s legal woes the next day on CNN.
“There can be no doubt that these leaks have inserted President Biden into this case,” he said.
He then described a nearly unthinkable scenario: The president would testify to undermine a criminal case brought by prosecutors representing the United States of America.
Days after Shapley and Zeigler’s testimony, the DOJ said the language in the Hunter plea deal would have to change. That change was the president’s son pleading guilty to “willfully failing to pay his taxes.” Woodruff added the gun charge would remain a pretrial diversion provision. The immunity clause, which provided a legal shield on future charges, an insurance policy against GOP reprisals if a Republican wins the 2024 election, was left in place.
Zeigler hammered the Department of Justice, claiming he saw “the corrosion of ethical standards and the abuse of power that threaten our nation." That forced another edit to the deal’s language, stipulating a lifetime ban on Hunter buying ammunition and informing officials if he was going to travel overseas.
But Judge Maryellen Noreika was still hesitant to sign off on the deal, especially since she was unsure about the immunity provision; what was the scope of this proposal? Woodruff added the Justice Department said the protections were narrow, which did not sit well with Biden’s legal team. Judge Noreika advised both parties to get the language straight on the immunity provision. That’s when the DOJ said any future plea would have to exclude that clause, leading to the inevitable death of the ‘Hunter Get Out of Jail’ saga.
Maybe we should thank Shapley and Ziegler for that, along with House Democrats, who were sloppy and unprepared during this hearing. Their inability to discredit or debunk the witnesses only reinforced the ongoing narrative that the DOJ was interfering with anything related to Joe and Hunter Biden and that the Justice Department was covering up for the Biden family’s crimes.
The irony about Hunter’s lawyers claiming that the DOJ’s credibility would be shot if they pursued legal charges against the president’s son is that it was already in tatters; you already know this from the Russia collusion hoax. This department's actions during the Trump years bolster arguments for its dissolution due to the rampant corruption, rogue actions, and suffocating political bias that has percolated through its halls.
Now, with Shapley and Ziegler, it might be Attorney General Merrick Garland who could be in the impeachment crosshairs for not being forthright about the level of independence David Weiss had in investigating Hunter.
And after all this, as of now, there will be a trial for Hunter Biden. Will Joe be a witness?