Hunter Biden Tinfoil issues

[youthathletics]

Will Scharf
@willscharf 6:35 PM · Jul 26, 2023

Based on conversations with people who were in the courtroom today, and my experience as a former federal prosecutor, I think I know the full story of what happened with the Hunter Biden plea agreement blow-up this morning.

Bear with me, because this is a little complicated:

Typically, if the Government is offering to a defendant that it will either drop charges or decline to bring new charges in return for the defendant's guilty plea, the plea is structured under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(A). An agreement not to prosecute Hunter for FARA violations or other crimes in return for his pleading guilty to the tax misdemeanors, for example, would usually be a (c)(1)(A) plea. This is open, transparent, subject to judicial approval, etc.

In Hunter's case, according to what folks in the courtroom have told me, Hunter's plea was structured under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(B), which is usually just a plea in return for a joint sentencing recommendation only, and contained no information on its face about other potential charges, and contained no clear agreement by DOJ to forego prosecution of other charges.

Instead, DOJ and Hunter's lawyers effectively hid that part of the agreement in what was publicly described as a pretrial diversion agreement relating to a § 922(g)(3) gun charge against Hunter for being a drug user in possession of a firearm.

That pretrial diversion agreement as written was actually MUCH broader than just the gun charge. If Hunter were to complete probation, the pretrial diversion agreement prevented DOJ from ever bringing charges against Hunter for any crimes relating to the offense conduct discussed in the plea agreement, which was purposely written to include his foreign influence peddling operations in China and elsewhere.

So they put the facts in the plea agreement, but put their non-prosecution agreement in the pretrial diversion agreement, effectively hiding the full scope of what DOJ was offering and Hunter was obtaining through these proceedings. Hunter's upside from this deal was vast immunity from further prosecution if he finished a couple years of probation, and the public wouldn't be any the wiser because none of this was clearly stated on the face of the plea agreement, as would normally be the case.

Judge Noreika smelled a rat. She understood that the lawyers were trying to paint her into a corner and hide the ball. Instead, she backed DOJ and Hunter's lawyers into a corner by pulling all the details out into the open and then indicating that she wasn't going to approve a deal as broad as what she had discovered.

DOJ, attempting to save face and save its case, then stated on the record that the investigation into Hunter was ongoing and that Hunter remained susceptible to prosecution under FARA. Hunter's lawyers exploded. They clearly believed that FARA was covered under the deal, because as written, the pretrial diversion agreement language was broad enough to cover it. They blew up the deal, Hunter pled not guilty, and that's the current state of play.

And so here we are. Hunter's lawyers and DOJ are going to go off and try to pull together a new set of agreements, likely narrower, to satisfy Judge Noreika. Fortunately, I doubt if FARA or any charges related to Hunter's foreign influence peddling will be included, which leaves open the possibility of further investigations leading to further prosecutions.


************

Some feedback in the timeline:
~ Only thing he got wrong was this was under Rule 11 (c)(1)(C), which stipulates to the sentence and takes it out of the hands of the judge
~ They were basically trying to give him a pardon without explicitly giving him a pardon.
~ It’s breathtaking how in one moment they weaponize the law to entrap the innocent, and in another moment they fashion a perfectly crafted hole to let certain guilty people free.

[MDlaxfan76]

Boy, the wish list of our MAGA friends on here.

Yes, Hunter ain't off the hook...but very, very likely he'll put the gun and tax violations to bed, as the prosecutors want the deal too.

If there is actually something more, illegal, than that, I don't know anyone other than perhaps close friends and family who don't want accountability.

But the nonsense that MAGA types are salivating over is also very, very likely not anything that gets to dad.

But that won't stop the BS.

[ggait]

When the plea deal was announced in June, this exact issue was very publicly flagged.

"Weiss' office added that the investigation is ongoing, though Chris Clark, Biden's attorney, said in a statement: "With the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the Unites States Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved."

Today Weiss again reiterated that other charges, like FARA, would still be in play. Clark again reiterated that was not his understanding.

So I don't think anyone was hiding anything. These guys just didn't have a deal. Maybe they thought they did -- that can happen. Mutual mistake -- feel free to read up on the classic law school case of the two ships Peerless (Raffles v Wichelhaus [1864]).

Us deal lawyers have a saying: "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."

[old salt]

Just FARA ? How 'bout money laundering & tax evasion. Why should Hunter's financial dealings, extended to his family members, not be investigated with the same rigor as Manafort's. Plenty of SRA's to track down. ...& what about his "art" sales scam ?

For our growing National Review readership.

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morn ... erm=second

Painting a Portrait of Corruption around the Bidens

by JIM GERAGHTY, July 26, 2023
On the menu today: Lo and behold, one of the buyers of Hunter Biden’s ludicrously expensive paintings is a Democratic Party donor whom President Biden appointed to a federal government commission. Meanwhile, the president’s son’s lawyers get in trouble with the judge. And in light of the whole sordid mess, this is worth chewing over: Just why are so many Democrats so resistant to the idea of nominating anyone else but Joe Biden in 2024?

Hunter Biden, Corruption Artist

The publication Business Insider reported this week that Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real-estate investor and big-time Democratic Party donor, is one of the purchasers of Hunter Biden’s artwork. The amount Hirsh Naftali paid isn’t known, but none of the paintings by the president’s son is cheap. In 2021, a gallery listed prices ranging from $75,000 to $500,000. As the New York Times gently put it, those prices were “high for a novice artist.” (You can virtually tour the Hunter Biden exhibition at the Georges Bergès Gallery here.)

The White House assured the public that to avoid any perception of people buying influence with the president, Hunter Biden would not be informed of the identity of any buyers. More than a few people noted that this arrangement, preserving the anonymity of the donors from the public, made it easier to peddle influence, not harder; disclosing the purchasers would at least offer the opportunity for public scrutiny. The arrangement always seemed impossible to enforce, particularly when a spokesperson for the New York gallery said Hunter Biden was expected to meet with prospective buyers at shows.

It will probably not shock you to learn that the promise not to tell Hunter Biden who bought his paintings was broken.

Business Insider reported, “Hunter Biden did, in fact, learn the identity of two buyers, according to three people directly familiar with his own account of his art career. And one of those buyers is indeed someone who got a favor from the Biden White House. The timing of their purchase, however, is unknown.”

In July 2022, President Biden appointed Hirsh Naftali to a position on the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which “identifies, protects, and preserves cemeteries, monuments, and historic buildings in Eastern and Central Europe that are associated with U.S. heritage.” It is an unpaid position, but it’s not like a wealthy Democratic donor such as Hirsh Naftali needs the money. A position like the commission offers prestige, a boast that the president of the United States thinks you’re the kind of responsible and benevolent person who can be entrusted with this duty.

Apparently, it is the administration’s position that Hirsh Naftali’s paying some unknown but considerable sum for at least one Hunter Biden painting and her appointment to the commission are entirely coincidental. An unnamed administration official told Business Insider that Hirsh Naftali was selected because Nancy Pelosi recommended her.

The publication also reported that some other buyer purchased $875,000 worth of Hunter Biden’s art, but could not determine the identity of that donor.

Back in August 2019, Joe Biden grew irritated with questions about Hunter’s business deals, and insisted that the worlds of his son’s businesses and the elder Biden’s decisions as an elected official had never crossed, and never would cross.

“I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period,” he said. “And what I will do is the same thing we did in our administration. There will be an absolute wall between personal and private [business interests] and the government. There wasn’t any hint of scandal at all when we were there. And I’m going to propose the same kind of strict, strict rules. That’s why I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else — even distant family — about their business interests. Period.”

That explanation did not quite line up perfectly with what Hunter Biden had told The New Yorker a month earlier, saying he had only had one brief conversation about his work with his dad.

And despite Biden’s assertion that “there wasn’t any hint of scandal at all when we were there,” know that Obama administration officials were uncomfortable with Hunter Biden joining Burisma’s board. In a September 2016 email to other senior State Department officials, the acting deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, George Kent, wrote, “The presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine.”

And if you listen closely to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the administration’s position is no longer that President Biden never discussed Hunter’s businesses with his son. Monday, Pierre said, “I’ve been asked this question a million times. The answer is not going to change. The answer remains the same: The President ha- — was never in business with his son.”

Whatever you want to call all this, it is not, as Biden promised, “an absolute wall between personal and private” interests. The order of events doesn’t matter that much. Perhaps Hirsh Naftali bought the painting to improve her chances of being appointed to a presidential commission, or maybe she bought the painting as an expression of gratitude for the appointment to the commission. Either way, you have people getting presidentially appointed jobs putting vast sums of money into the pockets of the president’s son.

This is backdoor bribery, and the American people can understand it. Yes, big-time party donors often get these sorts of unpaid commission jobs and paid ambassadorial positions overseas. But those donors give their money to the campaign and to the party, all detailed down to the penny in filings to the Federal Elections Commission. What we’re seeing here are massive payments to the president’s family, away from any public scrutiny.

Meanwhile, as Hunter Biden’s proposed plea bargain with the Justice Department comes up for approval from a judge, you can be forgiven for thinking the president’s son is being represented by Lionel Hutz, the notoriously incompetent and unethical lawyer from The Simpsons. Because calling up the court and pretending to be someone else in the context of legal cases constitutes fraud:

The judge who will review Hunter Biden’s plea deal on Wednesday accused a member of Biden’s legal team of misrepresenting herself in a phone call to the court — a bizarre episode that prompted the judge to threaten sanctions even as Biden’s lawyers insisted it was all a misunderstanding.

In a brief order Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika wrote that an employee at Latham & Watkins, a law firm representing the president’s son, had called the court clerk’s office and falsely claimed to work for a Republican lawyer in the hopes of persuading the clerk to remove documents that apparently contained Biden’s personal tax information.

Why Stick with Biden?

Earlier this week, the sharp-minded and sarcastic John Ekdahl asked why the Democratic Party won’t just cut its losses with Joe Biden. “I remain a bit baffled why the media and Democrats are going trench warfare for this guy,” he wrote. “He’s a disaster. He’s unimpressive. And he’s a scandal machine. Just swap in Newsom and jettison this clown show. I don’t get it.”

It’s a fair question, but similar questions were asked at the height of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. Had Bill Clinton resigned in, say, mid 1998, and then-vice president Al Gore assumed the duties of the presidency, Gore may well have won the 2000 election, as he would have been a quasi-incumbent at a time when the economy was roaring from the dot-com boom. Democrats fought tooth and nail to prevent Republicans from making a change through impeachment that likely would have helped the Democrats in the long run.

Decades later, in the middle of the #MeToo revelations, Democrats could belatedly acknowledge that their full-throated insistence that there was nothing wrong with the president of the United States having sex with a much younger intern and then lying about it under oath may well have had some bad consequences in our culture. The Democrats, in their blind insistence that the Republicans couldn’t possibly be right that their guy was always an abusive creep and that women like Paula Jones deserved to be taken seriously, sent the signal to every powerful man that if you’re important enough, you can treat your workplace underlings like a harem. As another powerful man with political ambitions observed a few years later, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

But Democrats couldn’t let go of Bill Clinton in 1998 because it would have represented a concession that the opposition had been right about their guy, going back to Gennifer Flowers.

It’s something like the sunk-cost fallacy: The Democrats can’t give up on Biden now, because they’ve spent too much time, effort, and political capital defending him over the years. Admitting that Biden is a senile, incompetent, corrupt hack today would mean admitting they were wrong about him, after they spent most of 2020 insisting that Joe Biden — good old reliable, honest, ethical, kindly grandpa-licking-an-ice-cream-cone Biden — was just the right man to lead America at a challenging time.

The other ironic aspect of this is that most Democrats never expected to be stuck defending Biden for two presidential cycles in a row. Traditionally, Democratic presidential-primary voters are looking for that next young charismatic rising star — the next JFK, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama. In 2020, seemingly every ambitious young officeholder in the Democratic Party chose to run for president — Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Julian Castro, Beto O’Rourke, Kamala Harris, Michael Bennet, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and a slew of others. And by and large, they all flopped, with many of them dropping out before the primary voting started. One reason they flopped is that the sheer number of them made it impossible for any of them to stand out on a crowded debate stage, alongside better-known, longtime party stalwarts such as Biden and Bernie Sanders.

And back in 2019, everyone knew that Joe Biden was quite old for a presidential candidate and there was a lot of talk, including in Biden’s inner circle, about him serving just one term. But that plan counted on Kamala Harris becoming a serious option as president. She hasn’t, and if you don’t believe me, ask yourself why we haven’t seen a single liberal columnist or Democratic lawmaker argue that Biden should not seek reelection and that Harris should be the party’s 2024 nominee.

So as long as Biden is healthy enough to maintain the appearance of being able to handle his duties, the Democrats are stuck with him until at least midafternoon on January 20, 2025.

[NattyBohChamps04]

Is Hunter working in the White House, or on the 2024 election?

Just asking for a friend.

Wonder if Trump's kids and in-laws are or ever will get the same scrutiny by everyone going insane about Hunter here, and by the DOJ.

Amazing how much more they get away with. But not surprising given how the deep state works.

[old salt]

Is Hunter working in the White House, or on the 2024 election?

Just asking for a friend.

Wonder if Trump's kids and in-laws are or ever will get the same scrutiny by everyone going insane about Hunter here, and by the DOJ.

Amazing how much more they get away with. But not surprising given how the deep state works.

Trump's kids already have. Hunter's the official dog walker, greeter for WH state dinners & hides the Easter eggs.

Hunter's just been financing the extended Biden family. Read his email complaint to his daughter.

[jhu72]

... the MAGA explanation is all BS. The actions of the judge and the lawyers today were explained by Andrew Weissmann. Weissmann was very complimentary of the judge. He claims you only have to read the court proceedings transcript to understand what was going on. The judge's problem was easy to understand as was Hunter's desire to place the judge in the loop of any future charging decision by the prosecutor. This was to place a buffer between DOJ and Hunter, in the form of the judge so as to defeat Trump's threat of revenge against Hunter. As written it is unconstitutional according to the judge. If and how they will solve this in a new agreement is not clear. Everyone understood the problem according to Weissmann. I would think you could solve this easily by time limiting the future investigation. DOJ would clearly have to approve of this.

If you want to see Weissmann explain this you will have to find the MSNBC segment from earlier this afternoon / early evening on MSNBC archive.

PS: Weissmann segment rebroadcast at the bottom of the O'Donnell hour.

[old salt]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

[jhu72]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

[old salt]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/youd-go-to ... s-732f8cc0

You’d Go to Prison for What Hunter Biden Did
In reaching his plea deal, the Justice Department violated every norm in the tax-enforcement book.
By Eileen J. O’Connor, July 25, 2023
Ms. O’Connor, a Washington lawyer, headed the U.S. Justice Department’s tax division, 2001-07.

While the U.S. attorney for Delaware was negotiating for Hunter Biden to plead to two misdemeanor tax charges, other things were happening in neighboring New Jersey. Last week U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler sentenced Gabriel M. Ferrari, owner of a Linden auto-repair shop, to one year and one day in prison after Mr. Ferrari pleaded guilty to filing a false company tax return. His return failed to include all his income and claimed deductions for personal expenses, including gambling on horse races. In addition to the prison term, he will be required to pay restitution.

Prison for tax crimes is real. In the 1990s, New York hotelier Leona Helmsley served nearly two years in prison for defrauding the government by having her business pay her personal expenses and claim tax deductions for them.

According to sworn and transcribed testimony that Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers provided to the House Ways and Means Committee and confirmed at last week’s House Oversight Committee hearing, the IRS investigation of Hunter Biden began “as an offshoot of an investigation the IRS was conducting into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform.” Agents established that, for the six years 2014 through 2019, Mr. Biden failed to report or pay tax on perhaps $17.3 million he received from questionable sources. He filed returns several years late, and when he did file them, he claimed as business deductions the cost of his drug dealer’s hotel room, call girls, sex-club dues and his daughter’s tuition at Columbia University.

What has been called Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal, however, wasn’t the subject of the House Oversight Committee’s July 19 hearing, where the two whistleblowers testified. Instead, lawmakers intended to explore ways in which the IRS special agents said the Justice Department had thwarted their probe and violated law-enforcement norms—among them:

• Denying permission to execute search warrants for which prosecutors agreed probable cause had been established, including the guest house Hunter Biden had occupied at President Biden’s Delaware home and the storage facility in Virginia where he reportedly had moved records of the numerous entities he had likely used to receive income from various sources.

• Stalling investigative steps on account of an upcoming election six months away, whereas the Justice Department tradition is to refrain from indicting or taking overt investigative steps for only 60 days preceding an election.

• Alerting the attorneys for the subject of the investigation that a search warrant would be executed to obtain documents and other evidence.

• Denying authority to interview essential witnesses, including family members and business associates, including those who could shed light on the meaning of “10% held by H for the big guy.”

Looked at with the full picture in mind, it is difficult not to wonder if those lines of investigation would have found evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s apparent shakedowns of foreign governments and entities. (The president has repeatedly denied ever discussing business matters with his son.)

Democrats on the Oversight Committee accused the witnesses of being overly enthusiastic about bringing criminal charges, and cited testimony that IRS criminal tax attorneys often disagreed with their prosecution recommendations. That’s irrelevant. IRS criminal tax lawyers’ timidity about recommending prosecution is common knowledge in the tax-enforcement community. Further, their views are advisory only. Officials in the Justice Department’s Tax Division decide whether to authorize bringing criminal charges. They did.

The Special Agent Report was sent to the Tax Division in February 2021. It was more than 1,000 pages long, describing each element of each alleged crime for each year, each piece of the evidence supporting each element, and the venue in which those charges could be brought. More than a year after the Tax Division received the report, it produced a 99-page memorandum supporting the recommended charges, six felonies and five misdemeanors. Each of these charges can carry prison time, some of them as long as five years.

Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley testified that Mr. Weiss told the prosecution team he then approached the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia about filing the 2014 and 2015 charges there and was rebuffed. Notwithstanding that Hunter Biden’s attorneys had extended the statute of limitations several times and would have again, Mr. Weiss let it expire.

For the government to permit the statute of limitations to expire is unheard of. When a taxpayer refuses a government request to extend the statute of limitations, the government goes ahead and brings the charges. According to the whistleblowers, that couldn’t happen here because, contrary to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s sworn statements to Congress, Mr. Weiss lacked the authority to bring charges in the District of Columbia.

For many years, it has been Justice Department policy to charge the most serious offense that can be proven. Mr. Garland changed that policy in December 2022. The Tax Division Manual, however, still provides that prosecutors are specifically prohibited from permitting a defendant to plead to a misdemeanor when the elements of a felony can be proven. Yet according to the whistleblowers’ accounts, that is what is happening here.

In 2020 the Justice Department realized that the prosecution of Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn had been based on falsehoods and filed a motion in the federal district court to dismiss the charges. The judge believed the motion to dismiss was politically motivated, and appointed John Gleeson, a retired federal judge, to look into the matter. Judge Gleeson filed a brief asserting that the judge wasn’t obligated to accept an attempt to embroil the judiciary in a “corrupt, politically motivated decision.”

On Wednesday Judge Maryellen Noreika will be presented with the scandalously lenient plea deal Mr. Weiss worked out for Hunter Biden, under which he would suffer no penalty for years of serious and willful violations of U.S. tax laws. Will she accept it?

The answer is no.

[old salt]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

...she understands all right. That's why she blew up the sweetheart deal.

[jhu72]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

...she understands all right. That's why she blew up the sweetheart deal.

... we'll see

[cradleandshoot]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

...she understands all right. That's why she blew up the sweetheart deal.

... we'll see

DoJ has to go back to square one. The prosecution thought they could pull a fast one on this judge but they got caught with their pants around their ankles. Simple solution would be for Hunter to man up and plead guilty and accept whatever punishment the court hands to him He would still be a degenerate scumbag but at least he would have done the right thing for maybe the first time in his life.

[old salt]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

...she understands all right. That's why she blew up the sweetheart deal.

... we'll see

DoJ has to go back to square one. The prosecution thought they could pull a fast one on this judge but they got caught with their pants around their ankles. Simple solution would be for Hunter to man up and plead guilty and accept whatever punishment the court hands to him He would still be a degenerate scumbag but at least he would have done the right thing for maybe the first time in his life.

The Judge was brilliant. She didn't have to call BS on the Biden DoJ's sweetheart deal. She framed it as protecting Hunter's rights as a defendant & ensuring that all parties concurred on what they were agreeing to, ...& the deal fell apart. The wink & the nod was between the prosecution & the defense, agreed upon before the House turned up the heat with the IRS agents, Archer & Bobolinski, forcing Weiss to say the investigation was ongoing so he could continue to stonewall. The plan was for Hunter & the Biden admin to declare case closed, lets move on, while Weiss ran out the clock until after the election & the SOL's ran out.

[dislaxxic]

This entire thread...this entire topic...is a shining example of why the country, the exhausted majority, is fully rejecting the supreme hypocrisy and bankrupt governing philosophy of today's republican party. It's just a full-on travesty that this once legitimate political party has sunk into the toilet like this party has. Dead enders that continue to support ANY aspect of what is currently coming out of this party are the real problem...truly deplorable people that wouldn't have a clue if one smacked them on the arse.

Meanwhile, one of the most productive administrations in a generation is plowing forward making life better for Americans just about every day.

MAGAt republicans do NOTHING but continue to swirl down every rabbit hole in sight.

..

[MDlaxfan76]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

...she understands all right. That's why she blew up the sweetheart deal.

... we'll see

DoJ has to go back to square one. The prosecution thought they could pull a fast one on this judge but they got caught with their pants around their ankles. Simple solution would be for Hunter to man up and plead guilty and accept whatever punishment the court hands to him He would still be a degenerate scumbag but at least he would have done the right thing for maybe the first time in his life.

The Judge was brilliant. She didn't have to call BS on the Biden DoJ's sweetheart deal. She framed it as protecting Hunter's rights as a defendant & ensuring that all parties concurred on what they were agreeing to, ...& the deal fell apart. The wink & the nod was between the prosecution & the defense, agreed upon before the House turned up the heat with the IRS agents, Archer & Bobolinski, forcing Weiss to say the investigation was ongoing so he could continue to stonewall. The plan was for Hunter & the Biden admin to declare case closed, lets move on, while Weiss ran out the clock until after the election & the SOL's ran out.

Yeah, Weiss is another Deep Stater...

[cradleandshoot]

This entire thread...this entire topic...is a shining example of why the country, the exhausted majority, is fully rejecting the supreme hypocrisy and bankrupt governing philosophy of today's republican party. It's just a full-on travesty that this once legitimate political party has sunk into the toilet like this party has. Dead enders that continue to support ANY aspect of what is currently coming out of this party are the real problem...truly deplorable people that wouldn't have a clue if one smacked them on the arse.

Meanwhile, one of the most productive administrations in a generation is plowing forward making life better for Americans just about every day.

MAGAt republicans do NOTHING but continue to swirl down every rabbit hole in sight.

..

You blaming the Republicans for taking advantage of the gift Hunter handed them on a silver platter? I'm sure your DemocRAT party would have NEVER done the same thing if the pigeon was one of trumps kids? In a strange way Hunter would have fit in nicely in the trump family. He has all the defects of character trump does and then some.

[cradleandshoot]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

...she understands all right. That's why she blew up the sweetheart deal.

... we'll see

DoJ has to go back to square one. The prosecution thought they could pull a fast one on this judge but they got caught with their pants around their ankles. Simple solution would be for Hunter to man up and plead guilty and accept whatever punishment the court hands to him He would still be a degenerate scumbag but at least he would have done the right thing for maybe the first time in his life.

The Judge was brilliant. She didn't have to call BS on the Biden DoJ's sweetheart deal. She framed it as protecting Hunter's rights as a defendant & ensuring that all parties concurred on what they were agreeing to, ...& the deal fell apart. The wink & the nod was between the prosecution & the defense, agreed upon before the House turned up the heat with the IRS agents, Archer & Bobolinski, forcing Weiss to say the investigation was ongoing so he could continue to stonewall. The plan was for Hunter & the Biden admin to declare case closed, lets move on, while Weiss ran out the clock until after the election & the SOL's ran out.

Yeah, Weiss is another Deep Stater...

Well a reasonable person such as yourself should admit that Weiss did a less than stellar job handling this case. The only thing the democRATs have been blubbering about is that he was a trump appointee. It should be fun when Weiss testifies in front of Congress. He will have a whole lotta splainin to do. I'm certain when Hunter Bidens legal team regroups they will hammer out another deal that Hunter can live with. Too bad that new deal likely won't send Hunter to a federal prison for a short vacation.

[Kismet]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

...she understands all right. That's why she blew up the sweetheart deal.

... we'll see

DoJ has to go back to square one. The prosecution thought they could pull a fast one on this judge but they got caught with their pants around their ankles. Simple solution would be for Hunter to man up and plead guilty and accept whatever punishment the court hands to him He would still be a degenerate scumbag but at least he would have done the right thing for maybe the first time in his life.

The Judge was brilliant. She didn't have to call BS on the Biden DoJ's sweetheart deal. She framed it as protecting Hunter's rights as a defendant & ensuring that all parties concurred on what they were agreeing to, ...& the deal fell apart. The wink & the nod was between the prosecution & the defense, agreed upon before the House turned up the heat with the IRS agents, Archer & Bobolinski, forcing Weiss to say the investigation was ongoing so he could continue to stonewall. The plan was for Hunter & the Biden admin to declare case closed, lets move on, while Weiss ran out the clock until after the election & the SOL's ran out.

Yeah, Weiss is another Deep Stater...

Deep staters too busy covering up alien bodies and re-engineering crashed UFO craft.

A pity Crumbled Old Saltine has to defend an administration full of crooks and liars he never supported or voted for all the time while never letting a good argument go to waste on anything the current administration does.

Re-postng copyrighted NR material is also very commendable. If anyone cared to read what's in the NR rag they'd subscribe.

[MDlaxfan76]

BS from Weissmann. It's > 2 years before the next election. Plenty of time to resolve this.
Does Weissman expect the Judge to give Hunter blanket immunity for everything, regardless of SOL ?
Biden urgently wants to resolve this & get it out of the news before the campaign starts & his nomination is jeopardized.
Garland's DoJ looks like a thoroughly politicized clown show.

... as big of a clown show as National Review? The judge is on record understanding the Hunter Biden motivation.

...she understands all right. That's why she blew up the sweetheart deal.

... we'll see

DoJ has to go back to square one. The prosecution thought they could pull a fast one on this judge but they got caught with their pants around their ankles. Simple solution would be for Hunter to man up and plead guilty and accept whatever punishment the court hands to him He would still be a degenerate scumbag but at least he would have done the right thing for maybe the first time in his life.

The Judge was brilliant. She didn't have to call BS on the Biden DoJ's sweetheart deal. She framed it as protecting Hunter's rights as a defendant & ensuring that all parties concurred on what they were agreeing to, ...& the deal fell apart. The wink & the nod was between the prosecution & the defense, agreed upon before the House turned up the heat with the IRS agents, Archer & Bobolinski, forcing Weiss to say the investigation was ongoing so he could continue to stonewall. The plan was for Hunter & the Biden admin to declare case closed, lets move on, while Weiss ran out the clock until after the election & the SOL's ran out.

Yeah, Weiss is another Deep Stater...

Well a reasonable person such as yourself should admit that Weiss did a less than stellar job handling this case. The only thing the democRATs have been blubbering about is that he was a trump appointee. It should be fun when Weiss testifies in front of Congress. He will have a whole lotta splainin to do. I'm certain when Hunter Bidens legal team regroups they will hammer out another deal that Hunter can live with. Too bad that new deal likely won't send Hunter to a federal prison for a short vacation.

I have no idea whether Weiss has done a "less than stellar job handling this case" or a great job. I do know that the MAGA types don't like to admit that he was a Trump appointee (as was the judge, but she was approved by two Dem Senators from Delaware).

From all I can tell, the prosecution and defense had slightly different understandings of what the plea encompassed and the judge pressed for greater clarity and Hunter was a bit distressed about the possibility that MAGA types could take more bites out of his apple downstream. But he then acquiesced during a 10 minute recess.

The one perhaps 'error' in landing the plea was the judge's objection, on grounds of separation of powers, of her being the decision maker as to whether Hunter had violated his probation (drank or took drugs again, re-lapse) and thus would be subject to re-prosecution on the gun charge. Again, fear of a new prosecutor, MAGA, claiming a breach in probation and forcing him back into court when the judge would not have done so. Retribution is very, very heavy in MAGA-world.

The judge is saying that she shouldn't have that responsibility, it's up to the "Executive"...I dunno, whether that's always the case, but she could be right. Weiss was willing to have her make the call, removing the possibility of a politically motivated new prosecutor doing it. In other words, he trusted his own judgement but not the potential judgment of a replacement full on MAGA prosector in a new Trump DOJ.

Seems to me that Weiss and Hunter and his lawyers are all correct that these are legit concerns, but the judge may be correct in her position as well.

And no, I don't agree that not telling the truth about one's addiction on a gun purchase form should constitute jail time, especially if the gun was never misused, and indeed returned two weeks later. Big slap on the wrist, sure, but jail time, no. We wouldn't even be discussing such if his last name wasn't Biden, indeed, if an R, the MAGA folks would most likely be lining up to say that alcoholics should be able to buy guns, period. Heck of a lot of them are alcoholics and don't admit as such on those forms...no prosecution.