The collapse of Hunter Biden’s original plea deal on Wednesday doesn’t just drag on his legal troubles.
It also creates more problems for his father, Joe Biden.
The president now faces more headlines and questions about his drug-addicted son’s case as he approaches the 2024 campaign trail.
As of Wednesday morning, it looked like Hunter would be in and out of the federal courthouse in Delaware in no time after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges of failing to pay $1.1 to $1.5 million in taxes in 2017 and 2018.
But once he stepped before Federal District Judge Maryellen Noreika, all expectations of the “sweetheart” deal — in which he would have avoided jail time and been immune from future prosecutions — quickly fell apart.
Hunter Biden leaves U.S. Federal District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, where his plea deal was rejected on Wednesday
The unraveling of the similarity between prosecutors and the defense team means Hunter could now face more charges.
It also means Hunter is likely to face prosecution over time.
Those could be crimes related to his multimillion-dollar business deals with Ukraine, Romania and China.
And Republicans say Joe was at the center of them.
At the plea hearing, Hunter admitted that he obtained more than $600,000 from a Chinese company and did business with one of their associates.
“My partner had ties to a Chinese energy company called CEFC,” Hunter told the federal judge.
When asked for his partner’s name, Hunter replied, “I don’t know how to spell his name, Yi Jianming is the chairman of that company.”
That was in direct contradiction to a statement President Biden made during the 2020 campaign trail that his son never “made money” from China.
In addition, some of the future charges Hunter could face put the incumbent president in a difficult position.
“Today, District Judge Noreika did the right thing by refusing to approve Hunter Biden’s beloved plea deal,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., who is leading the congressional investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.
He added that the Justice Department has “revealed that Hunter Biden is under investigation for being a foreign agent.”
If it turns out that the DOJ charges Hunter under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), as Comer mentioned, that would give the president even more headaches.
Violations of the FARA carry hefty jail terms and stiff penalties.
In 2018, former President Donald Trump’s aide Paul Manafort was sentenced to 18 months in prison for FARA violations related to his business work in Ukraine.
The Department has not immediately confirmed that it is charging Hunter with failing to register as a foreign agent while conducting his overseas business dealings, but House Republicans have collected a mountain of evidence linking him and his father to dealings in China. Romania and Ukraine.
The White House has maintained that the president was never “in business” with his son, but the GOP has stepped up their investigation with whistleblower testimony and a slew of other evidence.
It contains a threatening WhatsApp message that Hunter allegedly sent to a Chinese businessman in 2017, using his father as leverage.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to know why the agreement that was made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden is said to have written. “Tell the director I’d like to sort this out now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight.
Two IRS whistleblowers testifying before Congress last week also confirmed that the Biden family has accepted more than $17 million in foreign payments, more than half of which will go to Hunter Biden.
In addition, Hunter’s ex-business partner Devon Archer is expected to testify before Comer’s committee on Monday and reveal that Joe participated in at least 24 of Hunter’s business calls — which could directly implicate the president in his son’s unrecorded foreign plans.
To make matters worse, Sen. Chuck Grassley released a bombshell document from the FBI last week detailing an alleged $10 million bribery scheme between Joe Biden, the “dumb” Hunter, and a Ukrainian oligarch.
According to a conversation between a confidential source and Burisma CFO Vadim Pojarski in 2015, Hunter was hired on the Ukrainian company’s board of directors to “protect us, through his father, from all kinds of trouble.”
Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky told the source, “It costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.”
Zlochevsky added that while Hunter was “stupid” and his (Zlochevsky’s) dog was smarter, he was needed on the board “so that everything works out.”
Republicans recently exposed an intricate web of blank bills and bogus companies involving the Biden family.
They narrow down to more than $10 million that Biden family members received from foreign actors, including a previously undisclosed $1 million in Romania-linked payments.
Hunter walked into federal court in downtown Wilmington, Delaware, along with his “sugar brother” and attorney Kevin Morris (left) — who smoked a bong last week during a visit from the president’s son
In addition, lawmakers are digging into a “web” of 20 companies founded while Joe was vice president and boosting anti-corruption efforts abroad.
The corruption and influence of the Biden family has benefited at least 12 family members, Comer said — and includes telegrams with some of Biden’s grandchildren.
In total, President Biden and his son’s business dealings have well over $25 million in foreign payments, the Republicans said, and could amount to more than $40 million.
Comer has charged Hunter with violating the FARA and the Mann Act, money laundering, extortion and committing wire fraud.
The top Republican says Hunter can expect between six and 10 criminal references by the end of his investigation into the first son and his family.
GOP Representative Claudia Tenney said the rejected plea empowers the Republicans’ investigation.
“But this is really bigger. It’s about Joe Biden, because guess what? Blowing this plea deal means we can go back and get more information,” she said on Fox Business Wednesday.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is even considering opening an impeachment inquiry into the president for “lying to the American public” about his son’s business dealings.
He waits to set a date or timeline until additional information is revealed.