Judge puts Hunter Biden plea deal on hold, refusing to ‘rubber stamp’ the agreement without more information

WILMINGTON — Flanked by lawyers, Hunter Biden strode into the U.S. courthouse in Wilmington on Wednesday expecting to quickly resolve federal charges that have become a distraction for his father’s reelection campaign.

But it soon became clear that things weren’t going according to plan.

During a contentious, three-hour proceeding, disagreements emerged that prompted both sides to threaten to withdraw from a deal for Biden to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges and a related agreement that would have spared him prosecution in an illegal gun possession case.

And once prosecutors and Biden’s lawyers resolved those differences and agreed to move forward with the expected plea, the judge overseeing the case suddenly expressed doubts of her own and refused — for now — to accept it.

“You just want a rubber-stamp agreement. … I’m not in a position where I can accept or deny a plea,” U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika said, questioning whether some aspects of the complicated deal were constitutional.

In the end, Biden emerged from the J. Caleb Boggs federal building — named after a former political opponent of his father’s, in the city where President Joe Biden has based his reelection campaign — back where he started: still charged with federal crimes.

Noreika’s decision to defer any ruling for at least two weeks delivered the latest surprise in a case that has been tied up for years in accusations of political bias. The White House maintains that the case is a personal matter that has nothing to do with the president. But Wednesday’s hearing seemed to energize Republicans, who have sought to tie President Joe Biden to his son’s misdeeds and who have accused the Justice Department of going easy on Hunter Biden because of his father’s position.

The judge “is appropriately pushing back on this,” Julianne E. Murray, chair of the Delaware Republican Party and a lawyer who represents the right-leaning think tank Heritage Foundation, said after Wednesday’s hearing. “She’s figured out there is a lot more to this than what is being presented to her. Under no circumstances should she take a plea she’s uncomfortable with.”

House Republicans sought to block the plea agreement this week when the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee filed a brief in federal court arguing the case had been tainted by political interference. On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy indicated House Republicans may launch an impeachment inquiry into the president regarding his son’s financial dealings, featuring whistle-blower testimony alleging political interference in Hunter Biden’s case.

In response, David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware whose office cemented the plea deal, said he’d testify before Congress about the probe. Both Weiss and Noreika, the judge overseeing the case, were appointed by former President Donald Trump.

Republicans have blasted the plea as being too lenient and argued that the investigation was not comprehensive enough, pointing to an FBI informant’s unverified claim that a recording exists of both Bidens pressuring a Ukrainian oligarch to pay them $10 million. A former director of the FBI has said there’s no proof the recordings are real. President Biden said in 2019 he’s never spoken to his son about overseas business dealings, a statement the White House has since reaffirmed.

“Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and this was a personal matter for him,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. “As we have said, the president, the first lady, they love their son and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life. This case was handled independently, as all of you know, by the Justice Department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president, President Trump.”

As the president stares down a tough 2024 reelection campaign, attacks related to his son are sure to follow him. Democrats are quick to call that offensive a double standard, pointing to Trump’s recent federal indictment related to mishandling classified documents and attempts to keep them from the government.

The unusual level of partisan attention surrounding what is a relatively routine tax case has dogged Hunter Biden’s prosecution from the start.

The probe began in 2018 during Trump’s administration. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, has repeatedly vowed not to allow politics to interfere with the case and kept Weiss on as U.S. attorney in Delaware so as not to interrupt the investigation.

Last month, prosecutors charged Biden with two counts of willfully failing to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018, as he was taking home millions of dollars in income as a lawyer and a consultant, including for foreign entities based in Ukraine and China. In a separate filing, they accused Biden of illegally possessing a gun he obtained while he was abusing drugs.

From the start, Biden signaled he was willing to plead guilty to the tax charges in exchange for a recommendation from the government that he be spared jail time and serve two years’ probation. Prosecutors agreed to drop the gun charge if Biden remained drug-free and successfully complied with the terms of his probation.

The snag that emerged in court Wednesday was rooted in that deal’s unusual nuances — and the extent to which both sides sought to cut the judge out of approving any of its terms.

Repeatedly throughout the hearing, Noreika expressed frustration at assertions by the lawyers that she had only limited authority to accept or reject the deal. And as her intense questioning of its contours continued, she unearthed conflict that prosecutors and defense lawyers thought they’d resolved.

For instance, one aspect of the deal would have shielded Biden from prosecution for any additional crimes tied to the conduct described in his plea agreement. Noreika noted that those papers detail Biden’s work for foreign entities and questioned whether his plea deal meant Biden would now be immune from any hypothetical charges that could emerge from his work with those companies.

Prosecutor Leo Wise said no, acknowledging that the Justice Department’s investigation into Biden continues. That response appeared to surprise Biden and his lawyer Christopher Clark, who declared that if the government stuck to that stance he would have to consider the deal “null and void.”

Noreika also had questions about what her role would be enforcing the deal they’d struck over the gun charge, considering the lawyers likened it to an out-of-court settlement in a civil case. Though she stressed she had not made up her mind, she signaled repeatedly that her questions about that aspect of the deal might prompt her to reject it.

She instructed the lawyers to return to her within two weeks with a revised plea deal that would clarify her role in overseeing its terms and more fully detail the extent to which the agreement would protect Biden from future prosecution.

Biden said little throughout the proceeding, providing a series of yes or no answers under questioning from the judge. Through his lawyers, he blamed his much-publicized struggle with drug and alcohol addiction for his failure to pay his taxes from 2016 to 2019.

But while Biden told the court he’d achieved sobriety in June 2019, Noreika noted he still failed to meet an extended tax filing deadline of October 2019.

“In putting my life back together … it was a flood of problems,” Biden told her. “By the time I found someone to help me, it was past the deadline. It shouldn’t have gone by me.”

Ultimately, though, Biden told the judge he was not prepared to enter his guilty plea to the tax charges unless his deal on the firearms count was also assured.

The hearing ended with Biden pleading not guilty, instead, and facing the prospect of returning to court later this year. He did not address a crush of reporters as he left the courthouse with his attorneys and was swept into an awaiting car.

One woman shouted out “Hunter, you know you wrong!”

The scene was otherwise relatively quiet outside the courthouse situated within a mile of the Joseph R. Biden Aquatic Center and the Joseph R. Biden Amtrak station; a polar opposite of the spectacle that played out in Miami during Trump’s federal indictment last month.

“They’re going after Hunter because of Joe and I think they’re separate,” said Sarah Baptist, an artist who stopped to sketch the media set up outside. “Hunter is an adult. His actions as a 50-something-year-old man are his own.”

Jack Fitzharris, a videographer in the city, called President Biden “past his prime,” but said Hunter Biden’s legal challenges don’t factor into that view. “Especially when you’re dealing with addiction, you can’t have control over anyone’s actions, no matter how hard you try.”