Hunter Biden is a modern-day Rorschach test. The way people respond to hearing his name often reveals which political party they belong to.
For many Republicans, President Joe Biden’s son has not just abused drugs and, apparently, evaded paying federal taxes, but he is also his father’s biggest political liability. For some of these Republicans, Biden is a wretched figure who engaged in sex trafficking and improperly traded off his family’s name to make unearned millions in shady business deals with foreign and domestic actors.
For many Democrats, the younger Biden is a tragic figure who spun out of control as after the deaths of his mother, sister and brother.
For many Democrats, the younger Biden is a tragic figure who spun out of control as after the deaths of his mother, sister and brother. But they would most likely privately agree with Republicans that he is a political liability for his father. No presidential candidate wants to answer (or dodge) questions about the specifics of a son’s federal criminal case.
This week was supposed to bring some finality for the president’s son. After a five-year investigation, Hunter Biden had been expected to plead guilty to charges of tax evasion and agree to a diversion program for a charge related to gun possession.
But, as is apparently so often the case for him, things fell apart. While there were plenty of political theatrics before the hearing, Biden’s plea deal appears at this point to have unraveled for legal reasons.
There was a good deal of sparring between the parties and the judge during the three-hour hearing. But at least two things appear to have led to the, at least temporary, demise of the plea deal. First, U.S District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who is overseeing the case and was appointed by former President Donald Trump, expressed concern that the agreement would have improperly placed her in charge of whether Biden fulfilled the terms of the part of the agreement that dictated that felony gun charges would be dropped if he complied with certain conditions, such as refraining from using controlled substances or alcohol for two years.
Federal prosecutors (who are members of the executive branch) bring charges for failure to comply with plea deals, not judges. However, the plea agreement provided that if there were a disagreement about whether Biden fulfilled the terms of those conditions, the matter would go to Noreika for fact-finding. As she noted, that would put her in the middle of the dispute and potentially interfere with the Justice Department’s ability to bring charges.
Second, there was a surprising lack of agreement between the prosecution and the defense about what the plea agreement actually included and what its consequences would be. Biden has also been investigated for his foreign lobbying activities and specifically whether he should have registered as a foreign agent. When Noreika asked whether the settlement provided Biden with general immunity from future criminal charges, including those related to those activities, the prosecution said it did not.
The defense responded, “Then we’ll rip [the agreement] up.” It appeared that later in the hearing Biden’s attorneys relented and said they would have been amenable to a limited plea agreement. But the episode seemed to mark a turning point in the hearing and the moment when the wheels fell off.
Noreika asked the sides for further briefing and is expected to hold another hearing.
The political drama surrounding Hunter Biden has been fluctuating between a simmer and a boil.
The political drama surrounding Hunter Biden has been fluctuating between a simmer and a boil. House Republicans investigated him then investigated those investigating him, based on allegations that he received preferential treatment from federal investigators and prosecutors. Despite the fact that the federal prosecutor leading the investigation was nominated by Trump and has emphatically said he was given the discretion to handle the case as he saw fit, some House Republicans claimed that members of the IRS and the Justice Department engaged in misconduct to shield the president’s son from additional legal liability.
Just this week, House Republicans heard testimony from two IRS investigators who examined Biden’s tax returns and testified that they believed he improperly received a sweetheart deal. In fact, in a move that we thought would constitute the biggest political and legal drama of Biden’s plea deal hearing, a House committee sought to submit an amicus brief in hope of unraveling the plea deal. The brief concerns the testimony by the IRS whistleblowers. It is highly unusual that members of Congress would seek to intervene in a criminal case and upend a federal plea deal. But nothing about this case is normal. In a truly bizarre twist on the eve of the plea deal hearing, Judge Noreika asked a staff member working for the law firm representing Biden whether she misrepresented herself as being an attorney for House Republicans when she called the clerk of the Delaware court. The staff member, it should be noted, categorically denied any wrongdoing and explained that she called to have a letter included in the House committee’s brief removed from the public docket. The strange case of alleged misrepresentation turns out to be but another detour. The strange case of alleged misrepresentation turns out to be but another detour. The issue was not resolved during the hearing in which the plea agreement unraveled. But despite all the political theatrics that preceded Wednesday’s hearing, in the end, an inquisitive federal judge and prosecution and defense attorneys who never came to a meeting of the minds were enough to unravel the most politically charged plea deal we have seen in decades. The law, not politics, put this plea deal on hold.
Jessica Levinson is a Loyola Law School professor and MS NOW columnist. 
