Hunter Biden's plea agreement, which fell apart under scrutiny by a federal judge on Wednesday, was the product of extensive negotiations between his lawyers and David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware. Yet the two sides evidently did not anticipate that U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika would object to provisions that she called "not standard," "not what I normally see," and possibly "unconstitutional." In particular, Noreika zeroed in on two highly unusual aspects of the agreement that seemed designed to shield Biden from the possibility that his father will lose reelection next year.
The original plan, which was announced last month and is now up in the air, consisted of two parts: a plea agreement and a diversion agreement. Under the former, Biden agreed that he would plead guilty to two misdemeanors involving his willful failure to pay income taxes, and prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of probation. Under the latter, the Justice Department agreed not to prosecute him for an illegal gun purchase if he successfully completed a two-year pretrial diversion program.
