Hunter Biden’s Courtroom Reversal Extends His Legal Limbo, Political Exposure

A federal judge’s upending of Hunter Biden’s plans to wind up his legal troubles before his father’s 2024 re-election campaign has heightened the legal peril for President Biden’s son and could give the president’s political opponents fresh ammunition in their scrutiny of the first family.

In an extraordinary courtroom drama, the judge expressed concerns about a proposed plea deal under which the younger Biden would have likely served no time in prison in exchange for a guilty plea on two tax charges, and avoided a gun charge by agreeing to remain drug-free and never own a firearm again.

Instead of the carefully choreographed way most plea deals roll out, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika refused to approve either the tax or the gun agreement, saying they contained “atypical provisions” and needed further study. And Justice Department lawyers left open the possibility that the president’s son could face additional charges, including related to his foreign lobbying, prompting a disagreement with defense attorneys.

The Justice Department has long been investigating whether Hunter Biden or a Ukrainian consulting firm, Burisma, that hired him should have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. But prosecutors have faced challenges in pursuing any such charges, including that Hunter Biden routinely hired third parties, such as lobbying and law firms, rather than getting personally involved in making things happen in Washington, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The issue of whether the Justice Department would continue to press such issues or whether his plea agreement meant the end of legal scrutiny for Hunter Biden came to a head at Wednesday’s hearing. During a brief recess, Biden’s lawyer, Chris Clark, could be heard telling prosecutor Leo Wise : “OK, then rip it up. We didn’t realize what we were agreeing to.” 

After a five-year investigation and with a plea agreement signed weeks ago, the two sides entered the courtroom on very different pages. When Noreika asked what would happen if she were to reject the plea, Wise said they would try Hunter Biden on the tax offenses and raised the possibility of additional charges related to his taxes.

“I am not aware of any additional charges that could validly be brought,” Clark told the judge. “We’ve spent five years in meeting after meeting—10-hour meetings—going through my client’s taxes on a line-by-line basis, and this was the disposition both parties came to.” 

The judge asked if the continuing investigation could yield additional charges such as violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

“Yes,” Wise replied.

Noreika gave both sides 30 days to provide additional information. At that point, the younger Biden could plead guilty and formalize the agreements he had negotiated. If the judge declines to approve the deal, he would likely proceed to a court trial. 

Democrats played down the delay. “No one should interfere with this politically, ideologically, and let justice go forward,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer

James Carville, who was President Bill Clinton’s political strategist, said the White House can’t be pleased with the development. “I’m sure they would have preferred to leave this behind them. But I think it’s more of an irritant than anything else,” Carville said. 

Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.), who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, praised Noreika’s refusal to sign off on the agreement on Wednesday. “I’ve been saying for days that the judge should reject the plea deal. It’s obvious that the president’s son committed many more crimes than what he was charged by the U.S. attorney of Delaware,” Comer said to reporters Wednesday. Comer pledged to double down on the investigation he is conducting from his Oversight position into the Biden family.

“There are a lot of folks who don’t like the deal, and that initial reaction might have heightened the prosecutors’ unwillingness to really say this is a package deal that settles everything,” said Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at the Ohio State University.

On Monday, Hunter Biden’s one-time business associate Devon Archer is expected to be interviewed by the Oversight committee. A person close to Archer expected him to testify that

Hunter Biden, 53, has been a political liability for his father in recent years. In 2014, the younger Biden was discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine—thrusting into the public his struggles with addiction and opening a period that included allegations of unlawful possession of a firearm, a messy affair with his late brother’s wife and alleged attempts to capitalize on his famous father’s name in his business and consulting work around the globe. 

He abandoned an Apple laptop computer in a repair shop in Delaware in 2019 and files purportedly from that laptop began circulating online during the 2020 election—providing an extraordinary glimpse into Biden’s business and personal dealings that his critics, journalists and Republican politicians have mined ever since. 

In the plea agreement read aloud in court, Hunter Biden admitted he earned millions of dollars from foreign sources in 2017 and 2018, while he was addicted to crack cocaine, and worked with an accountant to prepare his tax returns but never actually filed them.

In 2017, the plea agreement said, he earned $2.9 million, including from his post at Burisma and his work with Chinese businesses. His accountant tried repeatedly—and unsuccessfully—to get him to review his personal and corporate returns and pay what he owed, it said.

In 2018, the younger Biden earned another $2.6 million but never paid his tax liability, instead spending most of his funds on large cash withdrawals, payments for his children, and payments on his Porsche, the statement said.

While the agreement refers to his substance-abuse problems, it states: “Even during this period, however, Biden continued to earn money and exercise control over his personal and corporate finances.”

In 2019 he got sober, and worked with another accountant to prepare his 2017 and 2018 tax returns, eventually filing both years’ returns in February 2020, stating he owed more than $1.2 million in back taxes. In October 2021, an associate paid the IRS $1.9 million to cover those taxes, interest and penalties, and later paid more than $240,000 to cover what Hunter Biden owed for his 2016 and 2019 taxes.

In the separate gun agreement, Biden admitted he also owned the gun for 11 days in 2018, and had wrongly asserted on a form to buy it that he wasn’t using any drugs, knowing a truthful answer would have barred him from purchasing it.

Republicans have sought to show that foreign governments and foreign interests funneled money to Joe Biden via his son in an attempt to buy influence. Hunter Biden received more than $8 million from 2014 to 2019 from Ukraine, China and Romania, according to IRS officials who testified recently before the House Ways and Means Committee. 

Foreign business activities by the children of prominent politicians isn’t itself illegal, but some work for foreigners aimed at influencing U.S. politics or media must be disclosed. In court on Wednesday, prosecutors said there was still the possibility of additional charges against the younger Biden under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires anyone acting on behalf of a foreign government to file reports on their activities with the Justice Department.

The law was rarely enforced until 2017, when the Justice Department began a crackdown on unregistered work for foreign governments by political consultants, lawyers and lobbyists. Several high-profile Americans have been charged under the law, including former Trump associates Elliott Broidy and Paul Manafort, who were convicted but pardoned by Trump.

—Lindsay Wise, Jan Wolfe and Aruna Viswanatha contributed to this article.

Write to Sadie Gurman at [email protected], Annie Linskey at [email protected] and Byron Tau at [email protected]