Judge refuses to accept Hunter Biden's plea deal after initial agreement falls apart in court

• Hunter Biden tried to plead guilty to two tax charges, but his deal collapsed in court.
• His lawyers claimed the deal would immunize him from potential charges related to business dealings.

Hunter Biden attempted to plead guilty to two tax crime charges on Wednesday after a dramatic back and forth between his team and federal prosecutors. Despite their in-court efforts to come to a revised plea agreement on the fly, US District Judge Maryellen Noreika ultimately rejected the deal.

From the start, Biden's plea change hearing seemed doomed, when the initial deal in place since June collapsed over questions of whether it would make him immune from future prosecution related to his business dealings.

Last month, prosecutors announced the charges against the president's son, alleging he illegally avoided paying taxes in 2017 and 2018. His lawyers said he would agree to plead guilty. Hunter Biden reportedly failed to pay around $1.2 million in taxes over those years but has since paid the IRS in full. Biden also agreed to seek treatment to have an additional gun charge dropped.

In addition to the tax crimes, prosecutors had reportedly examined whether Biden worked as an unregistered agent for foreign governments and other business dealings involving overseas companies. After news of the charges in June, Biden's attorneys said the plea would resolve all of the Justice Department's investigations into his conduct. But David Weiss, the US Attorney in Delaware overseeing the Biden case, said in a press release that the investigation was ongoing.

During the plea hearing on Wednesday in Delaware federal court, Noreika, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, asked Leo Wise, a top prosecutor in the case, whether the deal would mean Biden would get immunity for other possible crimes, according to the New York Times.

Wise said the plea deal wouldn't cover other potential crimes. At that point, according to the Times, Biden's lawyer said the plea agreement was "null and void."

Prosecutors and Biden's lawyers conferred over the scope of the charge. For a moment, it looked like prosecutors won: Biden indicated he would enter his plea and Biden's lawyers agreed that prosecutors could bring other charges related to other issues.

According to CNN, the revised plea agreement covers 2014 to 2019 and only covers conduct related to tax offenses, drug use, and gun possession.

After that back and forth, though, Noreika declined to accept the plea deal, and it remains on hold, CNN's Zachary Cohen reported from court.

Biden, instead, entered a not guilty plea.

The charges stem from an investigation by Weiss, the US Attorney in Delaware. He opened the investigation in 2018 during the Trump administration. While US Attorneys typically resign with each new presidential administration, the Justice Department under Biden asked Weiss to remain in his role.

Prosecutors had also brought a gun charge against the president's son — alleging he was in possession of a firearm, which is against the law for unlawful drug users. They allowed Biden to enter a pretrial diversion program for the charge, allowing they'd drop it if he seeks treatment. If the gun charge went to trial, it would carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

GOP politicians asked the judge to reject the deal

Republican politicians have sought to intervene in Biden's case. Some have been furious about what they call a "sweetheart deal" between the Justice Department and the president's son, and want more investigation into Biden's business in Europe and Asia. The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, filed a highly unusual brief asking the judge to seek more information about the case before deciding whether to accept a plea.

On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, the chairman of the powerful House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, tried to intervene in the proceedings by asking the judge to reject the plea deal. His filings cited testimony from two IRS employees who have said the investigation has been limited in scope due to political influence — accusations Weiss has publicly denied.

Rep. Smith's filings kicked off some drama on the court docket. Noreika, an appointee of Trump, said in an order on Tuesday that an employee at Latham & Watkins, a law firm representing Hunter Biden, called the court and pretended to be a Republican lawyer in an attempt to convince the clerk to remove documents that Smith filed to court.

The law firm told the court that it was an "unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication" and does not warrant sanctions. Some accompanying documents in Smith's filings appeared to include Biden's personal tax information, the firm said.

The court clerk had removed the documents from the public record "on their own accord," the firm wrote.

The staffer in question filed her own affidavit, denying that she ever implied she worked for Smith's lawyer Ted Kittila, as accused.

"I am completely confident that I never indicated that I was calling from Mr. Kittila's firm or that I worked with him in any way," Jessica Bengels wrote in the affidavit.

Legal experts previously told Insider it was highly unlikely a judge would reject the plea deal. Prosecutors have discretion, under the separation of powers in the Constitution, for which charges to bring. Political intervention from a completely different branch of government, as with Smith's filing, made it even less likely.

"There's no way the judge, for instance, could say, 'Well, I want to prosecute him for the laptop or for corruption or Ukraine' — it's outside the judge's hands," Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told Insider.

This story is breaking and will be updated.