Special counsel rejects Hunter Biden ‘misleading’ plea deal claims
Ashley Oliver
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Special counsel David Weiss roundly rejected claims by Hunter Biden’s defense team on Tuesday that part of a plea agreement between them had gone into effect, escalating a dispute in a case that could be headed for trial.
Prosecutors working on behalf of Weiss wrote in a court motion that the federal government did not “renege” on the plea deal “as the Defendant inaccurately assert[ed]” in a court filing on Sunday.
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The deal between Weiss and Biden first began to unravel in a hearing in July when U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika raised concerns that it would preclude Biden from future charges, including Foreign Agents Registration Act violations.
The deal involved Biden pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and entering into a pretrial diversion agreement to avoid a felony gun charge.
Noreika had ordered both parties to revisit the agreement, but last week, prosecutors revealed in a motion to vacate the order that they were “at an impasse” with Biden’s attorneys and “not in agreement on either a plea agreement or a diversion agreement.”
In response, Biden’s attorneys countered that the diversion agreement had been executed on the day of the plea hearing once it was signed by both parties, so the terms of it had actually gone into effect.
Prosecutors argued, however, that because Biden chose to plead not guilty at the plea hearing and because a probation officer declined to approve the diversion agreement at the hearing, neither the plea deal nor the diversion agreement was active.
They added that the judge exposed during the hearing that Biden’s guilty plea for the misdemeanors, should he have followed through with it, would have resulted in part from promises made outside of the plea agreement, i.e., promises featured in the diversion agreement. This prevented the court, per its rules, from being able to accept the plea as “knowing and voluntary,” prosecutors said.
“This was a problem entirely of their own making,” they added.
They also accused Biden’s defense team of using “misleading” citations to frame a hypothetical statement they had made as a factual statement.
The plea deal’s collapse comes amid Biden’s defense team shuffling around as it prepares for a possible trial in Washington, D.C., or California, where alleged tax crimes by Biden occurred.
Biden attorney Chris Clark filed a motion to withdraw from the case Tuesday morning, citing a “witness-advocate” rule that prevented him from representing Biden while also serving as a witness in a future trial that may now feature the issue of the defunct plea deal.
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One day prior to Clark stepping down, Abbe Lowell, a longtime attorney for high-profile Democrats, joined the case.
Lowell said during an appearance on Face the Nation on Sunday he believed a trial for Biden was “not inevitable” and that he would try to avoid one.