Feds Blame Hunter Biden’s Team for Collapse of ‘Now-Withdrawn’ Plea Deal
DEAL OR NO DEAL
While Biden’s lawyers said the diversion agreement at issue was “valid and binding,” prosecutors said it collapsed in court after a U.S. probation officer failed to approve it.
The Department of Justice refuted allegations by Hunter Biden’s lawyers that its prosecutors went back on a “valid and binding” plea bargain in a filing on Tuesday that officially declared the deal dead in the water. Prosecutors for David Weiss, the newly appointed special counsel in the tax and gun case, asserted in the filing that they “did not ‘renege’” on the deal. Instead, they wrote, the “now-withdrawn” diversion agreement collapsed in court after Biden “chose to plead not guilty” at a July hearing, after which a U.S. probation officer “declined to approve the proposed diversion agreement at that hearing.” As a result, prosecutors wrote, “neither proposed agreement went into effect.” After the hearing, negotiations to tweak the deal continued, but the two sides could not come to an agreement. Since they had reached an “impasse,” prosecutors then asked the court to vacate the briefing order that the judge had issued. Earlier on Tuesday, Biden’s longtime criminal defense attorney asked for permission to withdraw from the case, citing “recent developments” and saying he might need to be called as a witness in future proceedings.
