Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday gave her audience some inside-the-beltway info on Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea bargain arrangement after it fell apart in a federal court in Delaware the previous day.
OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
The deal, which U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika declined to accept on Wednesday, comprised two documents: a plea bargain for the two tax charges and a diversion agreement that would have allowed the son of President Joe Biden to avoid jail time for a felony gun charge.
The judge closely examined paragraph 15 of the diversion agreement, which stated that the United States would refrain from prosecuting Hunter Biden for any crime outlined in the “attached Statement of Facts,” as specified in the diversion agreement or plea deal, according to the written agreement Politico managed to obtain.
She immediately noted that the plea bargain was highly unusual, saying early that there are “some provisions in those agreements that are not standard and are different from what I normally see,” according to a court transcript.
In the court proceedings at the U.S. district court in Wilmington, Delaware, Justice Department prosecutor Leo Wise confirmed, in response to questioning by Noreika, that he was “not aware” of any precedent for a plea agreement that contains an agreement not to prosecute future unrelated crimes or diverted charges, as mentioned in the hearing transcript.
“So have you ever seen — I think I just asked you this, but have you ever seen a Diversion Agreement where the agreement not to prosecute is so broad that it encompasses crimes in a different case?” Noreika asked according to the transcript.
“No,” Wise replied. “And I would say, Your Honor, I don’t think it is broad in the sense that —”
The judge interrupted: “We’re going to talk about that. You can sit down.”
Ingraham explained exactly what was going on: There appeared to be “collusion” between Hunter’s attorneys and his father’s Justice Department to get one over on the judge but she caught it.
“Now the details of the now defunct Hunter Biden plea show once again how far the legal system will bend to accommodate and ultimately protect the Bidens. So the rule of law is always an afterthought for these people. What’s important is keeping Joe Biden in power,” Ingraham said during her monologue.
She added:
So after combing through both the plea agreement itself, as well as the transcript of yesterday’s court proceedings, The Angle understands why there was such a concerted effort to keep it all from the public. Now, the most damning provision, and one we hit briefly last night would have granted absurdly broad immunity to Hunter Biden.
Very conveniently, it would have covered every crime he may have committed during the relevant time frame. Presumably stuff regarding his lucrative business dealings with foreign entities based in China, Romania, Ukraine and God knows where else.
Now the effort to shield Hunter from further investigations — this is an explosive development, and it begs the question, if all these relationships he had with foreign business interests were on the up and up, now, why would the first son and why would his legal team think he needed this expansive immunity deal? And why wasn’t this known until yesterday?
Well, I’ll tell you why, because it appears that the lawyers from Joe Biden’s DOJ and Hunter’s legal team were in cahoots. The secret get-out-of-jail-free arrangement was hidden in paragraph 15 of something called the Pretrial Diversion Agreement, not even the deal itself.
So when Judge Noreika discovered the scope of the immunity and then the unconstitutional role it would have conferred upon her, she was not happy.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig provided an overview of the case, stating that he “should have seen this coming” based on the conflicting statements made by Hunter Biden’s attorneys and the Justice Department back in December.
While Hunter’s legal team claimed that the government’s five-year investigation into their client would be “resolved” by the deal, the Justice Department asserted that the investigation was still “ongoing.”
“If you’re sensing some tension there, there is, and that blew up in court yesterday,” said Honig.
If they cannot reach a new plea deal, said Honig, then “option two would be a trial.”
“That is very risky for Hunter Biden. That will be on the tax charges, that could be on the gun charge, could be on other things, and if he goes to trial, there’s a real risk he’s convicted of prison time. So Hunter Biden is going to be very incentivized to get that plea deal,” Honig added.