Hunter Biden went to court last week, expecting a Federal Judge to accept a plea agreement worked out by his defense counsel and federal prosecutors. Instead, he was handed a big surprise when Judge Maryellen Noreika of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware deferred the plea deal after a three-hour long hearing. Judge Noreika was nominated by President Donald Trump in December 2017, following a recommendation from Delaware’s two Democratic Senators. Federal records show she has donated to both Republicans and Democrats.
In the court proceeding, Judge Noreika told prosecutor Wise and defense counsel Clark that the revised agreement was still “not straightforward” and included “atypical provisions.” Asked if there was any precedent for the kind of deal being proposed, Wise admitted: “no, your honor.” So why was the deal “atypical” and “unprecedented?”
Part A, the Plea Agreement: Justice Department plea-bargain standards generally call for requiring the defendant to plead guilty to, at a minimum, the most serious, readily provable charge. Instead, this plea agreement called for Hunter to plead guilty to misdemeanors – two counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax for years 2018 and 2019, with the expectation of no jail time.
Part B, the Diversion Agreement. This is a is a private contract between a U.S. attorney and a defendant, where the defendant agrees to future conduct in exchange for a deferred prosecution. In this case, Hunter wasn’t pleading guilty to the felony gun charge; instead, he was merely agreeing to a couple of years of probation. In effect, felony gun charges would be dropped upon the completion of his probation. Note that hidden in this agreement was a provision that bound the United States to not prosecute Biden “for any federal crimes encompassed by “the Statement of Facts” attached to the first part of the deal, the Plea Agreement.
This “Statement of Facts” included: Hunter’s role with and compensation from Burisma; Hunter’s role with and compensation from Chinese private equity firm Bohai, Harvest, and Rosemont; Hunter’s holding company Owasco; Hunter’s consulting firm Rosemont Seneca; and many other aspects of Hunter’s controversial web of business relationships. Wow! What an incredibly great deal! The government makes Hunter’s firearms felony disappear, and in return, the Justice Department is prevented from and will not prosecute him for any other tax crimes, money laundering, felony failure to register as a foreign agent, bribery conspiracy, or any other criminal offenses arising out of his business dealings from 2014 to 2019.
This sweet deal fell completely apart when Judge Noreika asked prosecutors whether Hunter Biden was currently under active investigation, and federal prosecutor Leo Wise replied that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is still investigating Hunter Biden over a potential FARA violation, which is a criminal offense that involves working on behalf of a foreign principal without registering or disclosing the agreement and money to the Justice Department. Failure to do so can result in up to five years in prison and hefty fines. By the way, did you know that, despite Hunter and other Biden family members receiving well over seventeen million dollars from foreign corporations and individuals, Hunter never registered as a foreign agent? So, it is not a surprise that when the defense counsel heard that Hunter was potentially facing a long spell in the federal penitentiary, it angrily declared the agreement was “null and void.”
It is important to note that the Department of Justice has been investigating Hunter for five years. Why is that so important? First of all, why did they wait so long so long to charge him for obvious violations of tax fraud and gun charges? Why did the government wait so long to grant Hunter such an incredibly generous deal, one that allowed the President’s son to basically get off “scot free?” Two IRS whistleblowers recently testified under oath to Congress and gave their answer. The fix was in, for this case was actively managed to avoid serious charges for the President’s son. More specifically, they testified, among other things, that:
Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf, repeatedly blocked further investigation into Hunter Biden. She denied a request for a search warrant of Joe Biden's Wilmington home, where Hunter Biden kept some of his financial records, citing "optics".
She prevented investigators from asking about Joe Biden's connection to his son's finances and denied a request to interview Mr Biden's adult grandchildren about their connections to deductions claimed on Hunter Biden's tax returns.
She informed Mr Biden's lawyers that investigators were interested in documents contained in a rented northern Virginia storage unit, allowing Mr Biden the opportunity to access the unit before investigators could take action,
"In November of 2022, the statute of limitations was set to expire for the 2014 and 2015 charges in D.C., which included the 2014 felonies for the attempt to evade or defeat tax and fraud or false statement regarding Burisma income earned by Hunter Biden," The statute of limitations had been extended through a tolling agreement with Hunter Biden’s defense counsel, and they were willing to extend it past 2022. Instead, U.S. Delaware Attorney David Weiss waited out the statute of limitations related to 2014-2015 financial crimes allowing the president’s son to evade additional charges.
Speaking of the Statute of Limitations, if government prosecutors are really still considering prosecuting Hunter for FARA violations, they better hurry, for there is a five-year statute of limitations for charges under FARA. Many of Hunter’s most lucrative Chinese government-linked payouts occurred in 2017 and 2018, so it appears that Hunter has already collected his “get out of jail free card” for some of that time period. However, he did leave the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma's in 2019, so there is still time to charge Hunter for his failure to register under FARA. What’s taking so long? Are government prosecutors once again going to wait out the statute of limitations for FARA violations, so the President’s son can escape criminal prosecution once again?
We’ll end this article with a little humor. Earlier in our piece we used the phrase “scot free.” We decided to search the origination of that phrase, and we found that it started with the Scandinavian word skat, which means tax. The phrase “getting off scot free” simply refers to not paying one’s taxes. That’s perfect, for Hunter.
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