CNN legal analyst Elie Honig praised the judge who put Hunter Biden’s plea deal on pause, saying she was the “only one who did her job properly.”
Hunter pleaded not guilty on Wednesday after Judge Maryellen Noreika refused the plea deal made between the Department of Justice and Hunter’s legal team. Noreika raised concerns about the agreement’s “broad immunity” for potential future charges, CNN reported. Hunter initially intended to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and enter a probation agreement for a felony gun charge.
Honig was discussing the fallout, arguing both the prosecutors and defense failed to properly do their jobs.
“It was a failure of lawyering, it was a failure by DOJ, it was a failure by Hunter Biden’s lawyer’s to communicate and make sure they had the agreement set. The key language … says Hunter Biden will not be further prosecuted for anything laid out in the Statement of Facts. If you look at that document, there is a Statement of Facts, it’s about four pages, and it lays out Hunter Biden’s business history, making millions of dollars by the way from Chinese companies and Ukrainian companies, and his drug use history. Now, this is where the legalese comes in. There’s play on this. DOJ apparently reads that to mean only the tax stuff that’s talked about in the actual text. Hunter Biden’s lawyers said, well we sort of understood it to mean anything in the periphery, anything that might touch on any of his foreign dealings at all. That was the disconnect and when the judge identified that, she said ‘you don’t have a deal,'” Honig said.
“Yeah. The judge here, meticulous in her questioning, a former patent attorney. It was really interesting to just hear as Kara was coming out of the court and reporting that as this was going step by step. The question was ambiguity and how ambiguous this language is, and then the issue of potential FARA charges came up. Can you explain to people what that is and why that matters?” Poppy Harlow said. (RELATED: ‘Real Risk Of Prison Time’: CNN Legal Analyst Breaks Down Hunter’s Plea Breakdown)
“I think the judge was the only person in the courtroom yesterday who did her job properly. When the judge was trying to explore this disconnect, what is he covered for, what is he not, the judge said, interestingly, would he be covered [under FARA] which says if you are lobbying the U.S. Government on behalf of a foreign government you have to register with DoJ. Hunter Biden had not registered. And DOJ here said he’s not covered for that, and Hunter Biden’s team went, ‘whoa, that’s a problem,’ and that is crucial,” Honig explained. “Is he still chargeable for this under their agreement or not, and when the judge identified that, she said, you all need to go back to the drawing board.”
Honig went on to explain that Hunter’s team was likely filled with “undue optimism” to not have preemptively seen this outcome being possible.