Boy oh boy, do we have a hot potato here.
First, let me say that all the reporting that we have seen to this point on the alleged sweetheart plea deal for Hunter Biden has been completely inaccurate.
Now, Hunter’s team is trying to say the deal is in place, but special counsel David Weiss says that is 100 percent not the case, reported ABC News.
Never a Deal
So, from what I have seen in the most recent reporting, the deal that was posted by most media outlets was actually a deal that Hunter’s team wanted in place.
There was some back and forth, and both legal teams presented plea deals before the judge. Hunter’s team was insisting on immunity for future indictments, but the prosecutors and judge rejected that stipulation.
Hunter’s legal team has been throwing out allegations against prosecutors all week, but Weiss is now firing back.
His filing stated, "First, the Government did not ‘renege’ on the ‘previously agreed-upon Plea Agreement,’ as the Defendant inaccurately asserts in the first substantive sentence of his response."
The filing added that Hunter Biden "chose to plead not guilty at the hearing on July 26, 2023, and U.S. Probation declined to approve the proposed diversion agreement at that hearing. Thus, neither proposed agreement entered into effect,” reported Fox News.
Weiss added that “as of the end of the hearing on July 26, the two proposed agreements were drafts that either party could propose changes to. And both parties did so following the hearing.
"Without going into the substance of the negotiations between the parties, in the afternoon after the hearing on July 26, defense counsel asked to meet with the Government.
“At that meeting, defense counsel proposed changes to both documents. The Government considered the Defendant’s proposals but did not believe they were in the best interests of the United States and offered counterproposals on July 31, 2023."
Weiss continued that since Hunter chose to plead not guilty, everything was now off the table, and the criminal tax information that had been previously submitted held a request for dismissal.
Weiss concluded, "To reiterate, the now-withdrawn diversion agreement, by its own terms, is not in effect.”
He stressed that since "it never went into effect and, therefore, none of its terms are binding on either party."
With Hunter’s attorneys now talking smack about the prosecution, I will go out on a limb and say the attitude will significantly change.
This would also explain why Hunter’s legal team is now trying to get the case moved out of Delaware and away from the Judge that called the proposed deal into question in the first place.
