minute that this plea agreement was announced. this hunter biden team was especially sensitive to ment mentioning the gun charge as part of the overall agreement and one of the things that we know is that in the case of hunter biden, he caused himself all of these problems by going out. he did a book in which he admitted that when he bought this gun, at the time he bought this firearm he was actually addicted to drugs which is a paper violation, but it is a serious one. it s a felony, and so one of the things that i think will have to be addressed as part of this hearing is beyond the two misdemeanors that he s pleading to. there will be these terms that are governed, that will govern how that gets resolved. how that gets taken away. the government is saying that if he agrees to certain stipulations, certain conditions that the judge will lay out as part of his hearing today then that gun charge goes away, like
it never happened and one of the things that judge wants to make sure and clear of here is beyond just the two misdemeanors is that hunter biden knows what he s agreeing to because at any point, obviously this gun charge could come back if he fails to satisfy the terms of that agreement and again, we still don t know exactly what those terms will be as laid out by the court and by the prosecution, but the gun charge is certainly the thing that was the most serious thing that was hanging over hunter biden s head as the two sides were trying to work out this agreement in the last few months. evan, stand by. elie honig is standing by. on the gun charge which is a felony charge they agreed to a diversion program which means he has to do some certain things to meet certain requirements and then there s no charge and that charge goes away, correct? that s fairly rare in the federal system. diversionary programs like this means if you comply with drug
you and john do this very well. you ve been a federal prosecutor. say you were on hunter biden s team at this point. are you trying to get this kind of squared away today or do you feel like you re going back to the drawing board because there are so many questions about what your legal exposure is? so the concern that hunter biden s lawyers have right now is yes, he s going back to court and the plan was for him to plea to the charge and have it diverted and he needs to be covered for everything else out there. evan laid out the universe that we know of and there s probably more in doj, that doesn t mean he will necessarily be charged and you can t walk in and take a plea and find out that two months from now he s being charged from something more from the prosecutor s view. it s the converse of that. we re give being him this plea, but does it cover him for all time for all things or is it limited to the tax and gun charge? i keep saying this. this is a contract, a deal
probation. that means no jail time for hunter biden, at least that s the recommendation from the justice department as part of this agreement under which hunter biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018, but that s the legal part of this. the political part of this is looming very large inside the courtroom. you can see right now the justice department is going through the sources of some of the income that have become such a part of the political part of this story, that hunter biden made money from his work overseas in ukraine and from chinese companies. he had the money according to the justice department to pay his taxes and just did not. now the judge is going through all of the facts as prosecutors will lay them out. one of the things that she asked and this is a judge, mary ellen
john, as i went back in the courtroom the hearing had just begun again. the judge was back on the bench and she was pressing the prosecution on this investigation and the four corners of this plea agreement. one of the prosecutors said that the investigation was very much ongoing and she asked him, what is not covered in this plea agreement? if you are leaving the possibility for there being further charges. would this be a charge as not registering as an agent. blow the plea deal would not include that. it was at the point that she said to the prosecution, if you can charge that then what does this mean and the prosecutors, she asked hunter biden s attorneys said there s no deal. the prosecution said there is no deal. the plea agreement as they understand it is now null and void and they were move ahead to talk about what the next steps would be in this case. as of now the deal appears to be dead and off the table and it remains to be seen how they will