lenient sentence. now they re going to trial and as joyce knows, when federal prosecutors no longer look at a plea and are preparing for trial the deal gets worse, not better. things are going to continue to build up here and get worse for hunter biden because of this new pleading and withdraw of the attempted plea agreement. joining us now as well is nbc news investigative correspondent tom winter. i can t think of a worse situation just in this news cycle for the white house and the president in the middle of a potential, you know, campaign for 2024 when a day that they thought was going to be devoted to the argument in federal court down the street over a protective order on the former president and likely republican nominee, the front runner, now it s all about hunter biden. tom? well, that s certainly the political calculus, andrea, and i can tell you that the criminal calculus for the son of the president of the united states this could certainly not be a worse outcome for hi
delaware, if there is going to be a combative process going forward, a trial, which we hear in this new pleading the special prosecutor anticipates, then venue for those charges will likely be in california or the district of columbia and we will see an indictment sought in one of those forums. and, paul, do you want to add something to that? i interrupted you only because we just were given the court s filing. the prosecutor s filing. only to say, andrea, that this pleading makes it a bad day for hunter biden. what was once a hope that he would resolve these tax cases now means according to this filing he s going to trial on this case and the facts as set out in that plea agreement sound relatively simple, he made a certain amount of money and he didn t pay taxes on them. so this tax case, once looked like it was going to be resolved, now going to trial. you don t get the benefit of the bargain, you don t get the fact that the prosecutors may look at you and offer or suggest a mor
does that have to be decided on a case-by-case basis at sidebar let s say with the judge? no, the grand jury material will all fall within the protective order. it can be used at trial, it becomes public then, but at this point that will remain confidential. and judge chutkan is very clear about this. you know, if there is something arguably wrong that happens that could, for instance, prejudice the future jury or could impact the safety of witnesses, she said in no uncertain terms today that she will hold the trump team accountable even if something ambiguous takes place. and, garrett, what do you think is happening behind the scenes with donald trump being told that he can t take his phone or any devices in when he s reading these materials and that the lawyers have to be outside? look, something like a no phones while you are in the room rule might actually be enforced but there s wide recognition between trump s inter circle and the wider circle of people that support him tha
clause to the order that would limit the universe of people who are allowed to review those discovery materials. discussing mr. trump s social media postings and the order, the judge saying to attorney john lauro, quote, your client s defense is supposed to happen in this courtroom, not on the internet. the former president publicly pushed back on having any protective order and is also lashing out at special counsel jack smith s proposal to begin the trial in early january. slamming smith, quote, as an out of touch lunatic committing maximum election interference he says for choosing a date two weeks away from the republican iowa caucuses. joining me garrett haake, tom winter. take us through what we learned from the producers inside the courtroom and an adjacent overflow room including whether trump can review those materials alone.
after the hearing the parties continued negotiating but reached the impasse. a trial is therefore in order. that trial cannot take place in this district, delaware, because as explained venue does not lie here. so that is the filing from the prosecutor. also, paul, i wanted to point out as we were discussing earlier, the two issues, the tax issue and the gun issue had been supposedly agreed to when they went into that hearing, you know, in delaware two weeks ago, but he still was saying as he said at his press release earlier that he was still investigating something and there is what was just referred to as tom winter as the fara issue, not registers as a foreign agent or other business dealings that had been raised at those hearings. that could be what this is all about as well, but here is something that andrew weissman our colleague has put out. a special counsel is supposed to be from outside the government so how is this consistent with the special counsel regulations,