Hunter Biden’s legal woes deepen as plea deal unravels

Hunter Biden has been told he is under further investigation by the United States Department of Justice after a plea deal to avoid jail for gun possession and missed tax payments fell apart.

Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, departs the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building and United States Courthouse. Picture: AFP

Hunter Biden was told he is under further investigation by the United States Department of Justice during a chaotic court hearing on Wednesday when a plea deal to avoid jail for gun possession and missed tax payments fell apart.

President Biden’s son had hoped to draw a line under his legal woes but faces further court appearances and potential future prosecutions after he pleaded not guilty to two charges of failing to pay more than $US100,000 in tax.

Biden, 53, had walked into the court in Wilmington, Delaware, expecting to admit the offences as part of an agreement with prosecutors that would also settle a gun charge that carries a potential sentence of up to ten years.

However, the deal unravelled after Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned its scope to protect Biden from future charges and raised questions about the constitutional basis of including the firearm agreement.

Under questioning from Noreika, prosecutors told the court that there were further charges that Biden could face, for example in connection with failing to register as an agent of a foreign entity.

This appeared to come as a surprise to the defence team, who said it would make their original agreement “null and void”. They attempted to renegotiate the deal with prosecutors during recesses but the judge found fault with their hastily revised agreement.

“I cannot accept the plea agreement today,” Noreika told the court, as she adjourned and gave defence lawyers and prosecutors 30 days to explain why she should accept the initial deal.

“It seems to me like you are saying, ‘Just rubber stamp the agreement, your honour.’”

The hearing, expected to be a formality lasting less than an hour, dragged on for more than three hours.

Republicans have been claiming for weeks that the president’s son had received a sweetheart deal and were calling for prosecutors to continue their inquiries into wider matters of corruption. They are holding hearings on Capitol Hill into payments from Chinese and Ukrainian companies they allege were facilitated by his father’s role as vice-president.

Republicans have summoned David Weiss, the district attorney in Delaware who brought the charges against Biden, to appear in the autumn to explain his decisions amid claims of leniency.

From the start of the hearing, both defence and prosecution appeared unprepared for the level of scrutiny Noreika applied to the terms they had negotiated with Biden’s team.

She quizzed Biden about his tax deductions and when he said he had been getting sober from a drug addiction, she asked why he had not paid his taxes if he had cleaned up his life. He replied his affairs were still in disorder and the taxes fell through the cracks.

Matters for Biden took a further turn for the worse when Noreika asked whether there were outstanding investigations into him and prosecutors suggested there could be potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This again appeared to take the defence by surprise and Noreika said: “We don’t have a meeting of minds.”

Both sides huddled to see whether they could salvage the deal. Another attempt collapsed when Noreika questioned whether it would be constitutional for her to become involved in negotiations involving prosecutors that a judge would not normally hear. She asked them to come back with an agreement that was “constitutionally sound”.

Biden was adamant that he would not plead guilty without an agreement and entered “not guilty” pleas on the tax offences, which are regarded as misdemeanours that do not carry a risk of jail. Prosecutors were planning to recommend two years of probation.

Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy, the House Speaker, said Republicans may consider an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over unproven claims of financial misconduct connected to his son’s business dealings.

McCarthy is under pressure from his party and Donald Trump to lead a more aggressive attack on the president over allegations he benefited from or connived in payments from foreign entities while vice-president.

McCarthy acknowledged that House inquiries had not proven any wrongdoing by President Biden but he said an impeachment inquiry “allows Congress to get the information to be able to know the truth”. It would be a step short of bringing an impeachment to the floor of the House, as some of his members are urging him to do.

The Times