Hunter Biden Plea Bargain

Introduction

This page will be for documents relevant to the 2023 Hunter Biden criminal case, and to the plea bargain in particular.

Hunter Biden failed to file tax returns in many tax years, also failed to pay his taxes (a separate crime, since sometimes people file without including a check), and also lied on his tax return (e.g., reporting payments for a  sex club, for prostitutes' air travel, and for health insurnace for the mother of his illegitimate child as business expenses). After he was under investigation, a lawyer paid something like $2 million of his unpaid taxes for him as a gift. 

The IRS investigated, with the Justice Dept. following along. The Justice Dept. cut out the IRS from many key discussions, and warned the investigation's targets in advance so they couldn't be surprised by visits from agents asking questions or arriving with a search warrant for a building suspected of housing documents. The Justice Dept allowed the statute of limitations to lapse on prosecutions for 2014 and 2015. In 2023, IRS agent Shapley, feeling disgusted and betrayed, testified about all this in a hearing of the House of Representatives. The Justice Dept. then moved quickly to indict Hunter Biden for his tax offenses, charging him with two misdemeanors and recommending probation, no jail time, in exchange for a guilty plea. The prosecutor also accused him of gun crimes, but agreed to pre-trial diversion-- that is, not to prosecute-- if Hunter agreed not to possess a gun in the future. The Diversion Agreement and Plea Bargain were presented to a judge in July 2023, but blew up there because Hunter Biden's lawyer said the fine print of the Diversion Agreement would prevent future prosecution of him for the unrelated crime of being an unregistered foreign agent but the Justice Dept. said it would not.

The Heritage Foundation and Rep. Jason Smith filed papers as amici curiae (friends of the court) to bring under judicial notice the Shapley hearing transcript and other facts kept hidden by the Justice Dept. in the documents filed by the Prosecutor.

Court Documents

• The Proposed Plea Agreement of July 26 that blew up, including
  the Diversion Agreement (from Politico).

• amicus brief from Rep. Smith.

• Hertiage amicus brief and its Exhibits 1-12 (776 pages!) and Exhibits 13+

• Letter objecting to the Smith amicus from Hunter's lawyer.

• Tax case docket (July 27).

• Gun case docket (July 27)

• July 26 hearing transcript (not available via PACER]

Statutes and Rules

• Justice Dept. regulations for plea bargains," .e.g. "in accordance with JM 9-27.630, United States Attorneys may not make agreements which prejudice civil or tax liability without the express agreement of all affected Divisions and/or agencies. For additional discussion regarding plea agreements, see the Principles of Federal Prosecution, JM 9-27.400 et seq."

• Sentencing policies for tax cases, an excerpt in a tweet by Tigani.

• Flynn case order by Judge Sullivan appointing a court-chosen amicus because he didn't trust the Justice Dept. (I wrote an amicus for In Re Flynn myself.)

Other Documents

• The transcript of the IRS agent talking to the House of Representatives committee about Hunter Biden's tax investigation for three hours.

New Stories, Tweets, etc.

• @shipwreckedcrew on the normal procedural history of a guilty plea in a federal court"

• July 27 Axios article highly sympathetic to Hunter, suggesting that lawyer Lowell saw things were going badly for lawyer Clark and wants to stop things from being fouled up.