this morning, attorneys for hunter biden say their plea deal with the justice department is still, quote, valid is binding. and they say that a trial for the president s son is not inevitable. this falls the decision to grant special counsel status to the attorney investigating biden, the u.s. attorney, david weiss. kara scannell has the latest for us. kara? so this new filing yesterday from hunter biden s legal team shows that they re not just going to go quietly on this move by the by david weiss, the special counsel, to scrap what plans they had in place. they re saying that the deal they had on a gun possession charge is valid and binding. they re arguing to the judge that that should still stand. that was a 24-month period where a gun felony charge would be dismissed if biden agreed to certain conditions. they re saying that is still in place. now prosecutors told the judge that they had reached an impasse
this appointment confirms my commitment to provide mr. weiss all the resources he requests. it also reaffirms that mr. weiss has the authority he needs to conduct a thorough investigation and to continue to take the steps he deems appropriate independently based only on the facts and the law. now, it s not clear what led weiss to change his mind and decide he did need special counsel status. as you ll remember hunter biden had reached a plea agreement with weiss office in which he would have pled guilty for two misdemeanors for not paying taxes on time as well as an agreement on a gun possession charge. that fell apart in court last month after a judge asked a number of questions and said she wasn t ready to sign off on it. hunter biden s team had until today to weigh in private where they were in negotiations on whether they were going to revive this plea deal or not, and hunter biden s team had
myself is there s anything other than tax charges they re considering. the gun possession charge recently got hit hard in the federal circuit court. in the appellate court, something unconstitutional, it s hard to see how that potential case moves forward. with respect to taxes, with respect to this ongoing investigation and everything that congress raises, it raises two points, one, have any of the documents, it doesn t matter what congressional leaders or representatives say when it comes to the court of law, with respect to their perspectives on whatever they review, but have there been any sort of things that have come out in the last couple of weeks that have given the u.s. attorneys office in delaware pause from an investigative standpoint. not sure. i don t have the answer to that. we ve seen no overt steps, people being questioned. people being brought before the fbi. we ve seen nothing in the last year that there s been anything going on tied to an ongoing investigation. cou
unraveled when the judge there raised questions about the terms of that agreement. the unexpected developments came during a hearing in a federal court in wilmington, delaware. hunter biden had been expected to plead guilty to two charges of failure to pay taxes under a deal that he struck with the federal government last month. u.s. district judge mary allen norika pressed both sides about the terms of the agreement. and u.s. attorney david weiss of delaware who was prosecuting the case. both the judge and weiss we should point out are trump appointees. at times the judge appeared almost upset that she believed she was being asked to act as a, quote, rubber stamp for the deal for president biden s son. she expressed concern about how two separate deals, one regarding the unpaid taxes and the other about a gun possession
any time prosecutors develop a cooperating witness we drill into their head, do not speak. don t speak publicly. don t speak privately with anybody regarding the nature of your cooperation or the information you re providing to the prosecutors, to the investigators. mark meadows is asking like a cooperating witness. glenn, ken, yazmine, everybody stay close. we have new questions about this collapse of hunter biden s plea deal. the president s son was expected to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax evasion and agree to a diversion program on a gun possession charge. all that fell apart when the judge questioned the parameters of the deal. hunter biden ultimately entered a not guilty plea. i want to bring in carol lamb, former prosecutor, and tom