Hunter Biden‘s plea bargain with U.S. Attorney David Weiss fell apart Wednesday after a federal judge pressed both parties during a hearing about the prospect of President Joe Biden‘s son facing future charges, including failing to register as a foreign agent.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika raised the hypothetical of a Foreign Agents Registration Act violation as the Department of Justice faces scrutiny for declining to enforce the act for the younger Biden.
HUNTER BIDEN PLEA DEAL COLLAPSES IN COURT AS JUDGE THROWS ‘CURVEBALL’
“I don’t really understand the scope” of the deal’s immunity provisions, Noreika said at one point, making note of Hunter Biden’s foreign business endeavors with Ukrainian and Chinese energy companies.
She later brought up the FARA question, to which Leo Wise, an assistant U.S. attorney for Weiss, indicated that the department would not be precluded from charging the younger Biden with a FARA violation.
Wise’s remark prompted an objection from Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark, who said if his client could face future charges then the current agreement is “null and void.”
Weiss, who was present at the hearing, also said, as he has in the past, that the investigation into the younger Biden remains ongoing.
Hunter Biden, who took a lucrative board position with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings Limited in 2014, communicated with U.S. government employees in their official capacity about the company during the Obama administration, a fact conservative group America First Legal uncovered in emails it obtained from the National Archives.
Hunter Biden also pursued business with Chinese oil tycoon Ye Jianming, for which he explicitly sought in 2017 to avoid registering as a foreign agent, according to text messages between him and his former business partner Tony Bobulinski.
FARA requires, per DOJ, “certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities.”
America First Legal is among those pushing for DOJ to enforce FARA in relation to the president’s son.
The younger Biden’s now-failed deal, which legal experts had widely anticipated the judge would accept, involved him pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and entering a pretrial diversion agreement that would allow him to avoid a felony gun charge.
After the judge’s unexpected challenges to the deal, he switched his plea to “not guilty,” and the judge deferred the case, potentially for weeks, as both parties come up with new terms.
The terms of the diversion agreement, which involved Hunter Biden agreeing not to commit any crimes for a period of time, raised concerns for Noreika, as had the deal on the tax charges, which she worried would not give her the ability to reject or modify the overall deal.
Julianne Murray, a Delaware-based attorney for the Heritage Foundation who was present for the hearing, applauded the judge’s decision, saying, “The issue with the plea agreement is you can’t have either unspoken or unagreed-to provisions, and [the judge] could tell that these two were pointing to each other.”
The House Oversight Committee, which has been leading its own investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, raised alarm over the revelation that FARA was broached during the hearing.
“Today, the Department of Justice revealed Hunter Biden is under investigation for being a foreign agent,” the committee wrote on social media alongside siren emojis.
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Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is one of several Republicans who had criticized the now-failed agreement as a “sweetheart” deal.
“Today District Judge Noreika did the right thing by refusing to rubberstamp Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal,” Comer said Wednesday. “But let’s be clear: Hunter’s sweetheart plea deal belongs in the trash.”
Kaelan Deese contributed to this report.
