Hunter Biden was not smiling for the documentary cameras following him as the First Son arrived at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles early Friday after rejecting a plea deal.
This week his plea deal to two misdemeanor tax charges blew up in court Wednesday because it contained a feature that appears designed to impose guardrails against efforts by a potential Donald Trump administration to overturn it.
Biden, 53, arrived at the airport about 36 hours after his plea at around 1 a.m. local time, looking dejected.
He was joined by a friend and a camera operator filming him, supposedly for a documentary being made by lawyer Kevin Morris.
The troubled Biden wore a baseball cap, hooded sweatshirt and donned a backpack leaving the plane.
Hunter Biden was not smiling for the documentary cameras following him as the First Son arrived at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles early Friday after rejecting a plea deal
Biden left in a two-car motorcade and drove away from the tarmac within minutes.
The deal was set to see Biden plead guilty on two misdemeanor tax charges and a gun charge dramatically unraveled in federal court, putting him back in the spotlight.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika repeatedly torched parts of the agreement during a three-hour hearing in her Wilmington courtroom.
Among the provisions she railed against was a paragraph on any potential breach of the deal to defer prosecution on a gun charge – and who would decide if Hunter was found to have violated it.
Normally, prosecutors would make the determination. But under the language pushed by Hunter’s team, if the government believes there is a ‘knowing material breach’ of the agreement, it would seek a determination by the U.S. District Judge in Delaware – Noreika.
They would seek a determination based on a ‘preponderance of the evidence,’ and if they get one could prosecute for perjury, obstruction of justice, or other criminal violations.
The judge called the deal ‘not standard’ and said it might be unconstitutional by giving her a role normally fulfilled by prosecutors themselves, who are part of the executive branch.
The judge had federal prosecutor Leo Wise read from the agreement in open court, and Politico obtained the entire document.
‘I don’t want to violate the separation of powers or do anything (un)constitutional,’ the judge said. She also said she had never seen a diversion agreement ‘so broad’ that it encompasses crimes in another case.
This week his plea deal to two misdemeanor tax charges blew up in court Wednesday because it contained a feature that appears designed to impose guardrails against efforts by a potential Donald Trump administration to overturn it
Biden, 53, arrived at the airport about 36 hours after his plea at around 1 a.m. local time, looking dejected
He was joined by a friend and a camera operator filming him, supposedly for a documentary being made by lawyer Kevin Morris
The troubled Biden wore a baseball cap, hooded sweatshirt and donned a backpack leaving the plane
Hunter Biden’s plea deal came under withering criticism from a federal judge, who resisted being put in the middle as an arbiter of whether he is found in breach of an agreement
Former President Donald Trump has railed against the Biden ‘crime family,’ clashed with his attorneys general, and has attacked special counsels Robert Mueller and Jack Smith
Biden lawyer Chris Clark negotiated an agreement with prosecutors that injects a judge into the mix on deciding whether there has been a breach. It could insulate his client in the event Trump tries to order prosecutors to go after Hunter
‘I thought that Hunter Biden’s attorneys made it quite clear why they wanted the judge involved, which is to have this neutral party in the event that the dept of justice is under a different administration,’ former Southern District of New York Prosecutor Jessica Roth told CNN.
Another former prosecutor, Joyce Vance of the Northern District of Alabama, wrote on Substack that Hunter Biden had become Trump’s ‘favorite whipping boy’ and ‘faces ongoing risks of further prosecutions if Trump returns to office,’ and argued that the idea to install a more neutral arbiter has merit.
‘Trump is focused on revenge and retribution, and Hunter Biden seems to be at the center of his focus… Given Trump’s public pronouncements about the “Biden crime family,” there are good reasons for concern if you’re Hunter Biden or his lawyers. So inserting a provision requiring sign off from the court as a guarantee against vindictive future prosecutions, makes sense.’
The judge is a Trump appointee, but was recommended by two Democratic senators. She received praise Tuesday from former Robert Mueller top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann for her conduct in the courtroom, who called her work ‘exceptional.’
President Biden and his son have a strong bond after enduring multiple family tragedies.
In 1972 Biden’s first wife and daughter were killed in a car accident while his sons Beau and Hunter who were also in the car survived.
Later Beau died of brain cancer in 2015.
