Hunter Biden says prosecutors reneged on plea deal

Legal team says terms were largely dictated for now-defunct agreement under which president’s son was to plead guilty.

Hunter Biden after a court appearance in Delaware last month. Picture: AFP

Hunter Biden’s legal team on Sunday said the Justice Department had decided to “renege on a previously agreed-upon plea agreement,” escalating a dispute threatening to become a factor in the 2024 presidential race as President Joe Biden seeks re-election.

On Friday, prosecutors disclosed that plea talks with the President’s son had broken down and Attorney-General Merrick Garland named Delaware US attorney David Weiss as a special counsel to continue the investigation and prosecution related to Hunter Biden’s tax and business dealings.

The disagreements between the two sides spilled into public view at a hearing in July when Mr Biden Jr had expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanour tax counts. Under questions from the judge about both sides’ understanding of the agreements, including whether the government expected to bring further charges against him, Mr Biden Jr pleaded not guilty, and left the deal in limbo.

In the three-page filing on Sunday, the younger Biden’s legal team provided more details about the talks, saying prosecutors had proposed and “largely dictated” the language in the plea agreement and a separate deal to resolve a gun charge.

That included language that said the US wouldn’t criminally prosecute Mr Biden Jr further over the conduct at issue in either the tax or gun cases, a provision he understood to mean the investigation was over.

The agreement, now public, said it didn’t cover any future conduct by Mr Biden or by any of his affiliated businesses.

At the July hearing, prosecutors instead revealed they continued to investigate Mr Biden Jr, including in connection with possible foreign-lobbying charges related to his work for clients, which had been at issue in the tax counts.

In the new filing, Mr Biden Jr’s team said prosecutors had previously conveyed otherwise, saying “his understanding of the scope of immunity agreed to by the US is corroborated by prosecutors’ contemporaneous written and oral communications during the plea negotiations.”

The government asked Mr Biden Jr’s legal team to engage in settlement discussions in May, which the team understood would “fully resolve the government’s sprawling five-year investigation”, the filing said.

The Wall Street Journal