The political pressure on Biden family corruption is working — keep it up
Washington Examiner
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One of President Joe Biden’s biggest political headaches, the many illegal activities of his son Hunter Biden, was supposed to pass quietly into obscurity July 26 when a federal judge was expected to rubber-stamp a plea agreement between the Department of Justice and the accused.
But thanks in no small part to the efforts of House Republicans to raise the profile of Hunter Biden’s wrongdoing, Judge Maryellen Noreika refused to accept the deal, sending the DOJ and Hunter Biden’s lawyers back to the bargaining table to come up with an agreement that stood a better chance than their original flimsy document of withstanding public scrutiny.
HUNTER BIDEN PLEA DEAL COLLAPSES IN COURT AS JUDGE THROWS ‘CURVEBALL’
The Biden administration has insisted throughout the Justice Department’s investigation that Hunter Biden was being treated like any other citizen, without political interference. This is obviously untrue. It quickly became clear July 26 that nothing was normal about the plea deal offered by the DOJ and accepted by Hunter Biden.
For any normal citizen, the Justice Department will release a written copy of the plea agreement before a judge signs off on it. That didn’t happen here. In fact, the Justice Department still has not released the written plea agreement, and it is only thanks to media leaks that the public can see what is in it.
And it is very alarming, which is why Judge Noreika refused to sign it. Plea deals are contracts, and like any other contract they outline what each side is getting in the bargain. But that was not true of Hunter Biden’s plea deal. His only outlined what the government was getting, a guilty plea on two misdemeanor tax charges.
What Hunter Biden was getting in exchange was buried in the 15th paragraph of a separate Diversion Agreement. Asked if he was aware of any Diversion Agreement that included a promise not to prosecute crimes in other agreements, the Justice Department said “no.” In other words, it was unprecedented — not what other citizens get, but something that no other citizen has received.
Not only was it unprecedented for agreement not to prosecute to be hidden in a separate document, but the judge also asked the Justice Department lawyer to identify any precedent for the breadth of the agreement not to prosecute. Again the Justice Department lawyers said no. Unprecedented again.
Essentially the plain reading of what was submitted to the court would have given Hunter Biden a get-out-of-jail-free card for all illegal conduct committed from 2017-2019. By the Justice Department’s own admission, the breadth of this immunity was previously unheard of.
The Justice Department lawyer then asked the judge to take his word that the Justice Department was not bound by the broad language of the written plea agreement, and would instead maintain the right to prosecute Hunter Biden for other wrongdoing, including violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The judge had raised this possibility earlier in the hearing. To her credit, Judge Noreika refused to take the lawyer’s word as gospel and asked him to put the agreement in writing.
A wise decision.
Early in the hearing, Judge Noreika asked both sets of lawyers, “If there were a failure in the investigation or the charges brought were inappropriate, how would that get addressed in our form of government?”
“Through the political process,” the Biden Justice Department lawyer correctly answered.
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Exactly. The Biden Justice Department is trying to dispose of the illegal behavior of Hunter Biden and his relationship with his father and other family members as quietly as possible. They don’t want to show the public how the Biden Justice Department is treating Hunter Biden with far more leniency than any other citizen.
House Republicans have every right to throw the spotlight on the Biden Justice Department’s unseemly behavior because, as the Biden Justice Department admitted, the only remedy for their misconduct is the ballot box.