Judge Maryellen Norieka did the American public a tremendous service Wednesday when she put the brakes on Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
For once, it appears the Biden crime family will not continue to benefit from the nation’s two-tiered judicial system. The next step, of course, is the impeachment of his father.
And now that the plea agreement for the pair of tax charges and the diversion agreement related to the gun charge are public, the public knows just how much Hunter was set to get away with.
Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal was designed to be a slap on the wrist & ensure he served no jail time.
I believe the most important purpose of this deal was to protect Joe Biden & cut off further investigation into his personal culpability in corruption & criminal activity. pic.twitter.com/LFWhRe4f5k
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 27, 2023
He arrived in the Delaware court prepared to enter a guilty plea to two misdemeanor tax charges. He would admit to avoiding paying nearly $1.2 million in taxes, which carried as much as a year in prison on each count.
Instead, he was forced to plead “not guilty.”
The plea agreement recommended probation, in part due to an unnamed third party already paying the taxes Hunter Biden owed. Though the exact terms for which the taxes were due were not specified, any new unpaid taxes discovered between 2014-2019 would not be covered by the deal.
Then it got really interesting.
The statement of facts showed that the younger Biden served on the boards of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm, as well as a Chinese equity fund. For a time in 2017, he was also counsel for an international law firm.
For these services, he hauled down over $2.3 million in 2017 and $2.1 million in 2018. He also received $1 million from Patrick Ho, who had the honor of being referred to by Hunter as China’s “spy chief.”
Despite all this income, the president’s son refused to settle his tax bill.
Hunter Biden endured two domestic relations lawsuits and faced at least one court order to hand over his tax returns. The issue with compliance is that he had not filed them.
Returns for 2016 through 2018 were only filed in 2020. An aberration came in 2019 when his taxes were filed on time — but the estimated tax payment was not sent to the IRS.
Being the president’s son has its perks, however, as all outstanding taxes and penalties were handled through a “third party.” But those perks may be running out.
Experts note that Hunter’s “sweetheart deal” may now be replaced by a “poison pill.” This could leave him exposed to legal consequences for a wide array of misdeeds dating back several years.
Criminal law professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University told Fox News that to have a deal such as Hunter Biden’s fall apart is “extremely rare.”
